


Revenance

by JJK, SinpaiCasanova (Bladerunnerblue)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Old Guard (Movie 2020), The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Fusion, Alternate Universe - The Song of Achilles Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Gladiators, Grief/Mourning, Historical Inaccuracy, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, M/M, Medical Torture, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Steve Rogers is Not Captain America, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 62,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25550497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJK/pseuds/JJK, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bladerunnerblue/pseuds/SinpaiCasanova
Summary: And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.Or, the one where Steve and Bucky are immortal and used to be known as Achilles and Patroclus.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 501
Kudos: 291





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is basically the SOA/Old Guard/Captain America fusion fic that...actually a lot of people wanted.
> 
> Thank you to JJK, without whom this fic would not be possible 💜💜

**__** _(New York, 2018 AD)_

“We don’t trade lives,” Steve growled, adamant that he wasn’t going to let Vision sacrifice himself. Steve remembered, all too clearly, a time when innocent women and children had been sacrificed to appease gods before a battle, and this carried the same ill-taste in his mouth. He remembered their cries, the thick splash of hot blood on the sand, and had vowed he would never let that happen again. The Titan might have been bearing down on the Avengers Compound, but Steve would be damned before he let even one innocent life be lost. Not when they had plenty of other options to keep the stone from the Titan’s hands. “We don’t trade lives.”

“Steve.” Bucky’s hand on Steve’s elbow was a calming, ground presence, and Steve felt the anger boiling under his skin settle into a faint simmer. “It’s going to be okay.” 

Steve didn’t know what about any of this could possibly be classed as ‘okay’, but he read the optimism in Bucky’s eyes and saw the determined set of Bucky’s jaw. They’d faced impossible odds before and come out on top, what was one more battle? At least they’d be fighting side by side, where they belonged. Steve didn’t let himself think that time might be up for either of them. It was a fear that persisted at the back of Steve’s mind like an ever-present ache, but there was no room for that fear today. 

When Thanos’ army descended on earth they found themselves facing off against highly trained operatives, four immortals, two warriors with the power of an infinity stone, and a Hulk. Battle raged on the grounds around the compound, flattening the trees, spilling over into the lake as powers whirled and raged, and weapons flew. At the center of it all, Steve and Bucky worked like a synchronized pair: Steve launching the shield that he’d come to love almost as much as his spears of old, and Bucky with his rifle and his clever eyes, watching Steve’s six and picking off threats before Steve even realized they existed. 

When Thor landed on the field with a blaze of lightning spilling from the great axe he wielded, it looked like they had the upper hand. They beat Thanos’ army back, crowding them against the lake, and Steve felt revitalized. Pure adrenaline pumped through his veins, he could almost hear it like a roar behind his ears. His body healed as quickly as the aliens could injure him, and he fought almost like it was a dance; spinning and twirling through the carnage, his shield nothing more than a blur of silver. Beside him Bucky’s arm flashed the same, catching the light that caught on his smile, and twinkled in his eyes when they found a second to breathe and meet each other’s gaze. Steve had never felt more alive. 

Until Thanos himself stepped foot on the battlefield and all of that fell away. Steve watched Thanos squeeze his fist and watched the glow of five infinity stones shine like a deadly rainbow from his gauntlet, wielding untold power. Five. Steve saw the flash of green that meant the Wizard had been killed, which meant they were the last line of defense standing between victory and a universal defeat. It was still overwhelming to think, that after all of his years spent fighting to protect the earth, to protect innocents, to protect _Bucky_ , that the real threat would come from space. 

“Eyes up. Stay sharp.” Steve ordered as they converged on Vision to protect him and the stone in his head, but Thanos battled through them like he truly was a Titan from the stories of Steve’s youth. The Hulk was thrown back and encased in the concrete walls of the compound, War Machine’s armor was crushed and Thanos tossed him aside, Steve watched in horror as Bucky was punched out of Thanos’ path in a flash of purple, Natasha was wrapped in inescapable bands of iron that rose out of the earth, Sam’s wings were rendered useless by the reality stone and he crashed to earth with a sickening thud, and then Thanos was bearing down on Steve. Behind him, he could hear Wanda and Vison’s tearful, heartbreaking goodbye as she did what Steve had tried to stop her from having to do all along. Killing a loved one was an impossible task, no matter the justification, no matter how much they begged that it was the right thing to do; Steve would know, it was the one thing he’d never been brave enough for. 

Steve slid under Thanos’ powerful blow and came up, swinging the shield which bounced ineffectively off Thanos’ face. Panicking, knowing that if Thanos managed to use the stones on him he’d be out for the count, Steve grabbed Thanos’ fist and held the Titan’s fingers apart, preventing his fist from closing. It took a Herculean effort to hold him back, and Steve was many things, but he was no Titan. Thanos punched forwards, his fist collided with Steve’s face and Steve’s head snapped back, his brain rattled in his skull and everything went dark as he crumpled to the floor. 

It took moments for Steve to heal, but those brief moments were all that Thanos needed. Thor tried to stop the Titan, Steve rolled onto his front and pushed himself up just in time to see the axe fly through the air and bury itself in Thanos’ chest. Steve’s ears were still ringing, he couldn’t hear what was said, but he watched in horror as the Titan struggled to lift his hand and snapped his fingers before vanishing into thin air. 

Nothing happened immediately. Steve staggered to his feet, looking around in confusion. Thanos had retreated, he should have felt victorious, but dread roiled in his gut; something terrible had happened, Steve just didn’t know what. 

“Where’d he go? Thor...Where’d he go?” 

Thor gaped, looking just as confused and scared as Steve felt. And then, then, a sound that would haunt Steve’s mind for years to come: the quiet, terrified sound of Bucky calling out his name. 

“Steve?” 

Steve turned, heart jammed in his throat. 

“I-I don’t feel right...” Bucky choked out with a wounded whine, staggering towards Steve. He looked pale, shocked, his eyes blown wide, and it was then that Steve knew something was very, very, wrong. 

“Bucky!” Steve rushed forward, reaching out to grab hold of Bucky the instant his beloved suddenly collapsed to the ground. Steve went down with him, twisting his body to soften the blow, taking the brunt of the hurt the way he always had. 

Bucky’s head was cradled in his palms, his back cushioned on Steve’s strong thighs, and Steve remembered, then, how he’d held Bucky’s lifeless body in his arms the very first time he’d lost him, cradling him as if he were as fragile as a newborn.

The fear that speared through his belly, then, was just as potent as it was now, his grief just as overpowering. And yet, despite the dread that had settled into the pit of his stomach, telling him otherwise, Steve still held out hope that this wasn’t the end it seemed to be. 

Trembling hands skated over Bucky, trying to figure out where he was hurt, what was happening to him to make him sound so desperate. Bucky’s skin started to turn an ashen grey, deadening those gorgeous stormy blues that've haunted Steve's dreams for millennia. 

It was like nothing Steve had ever seen before. 

"Philtatos– _p-please_ ," Bucky wheezed, his voice now as jagged as the rocks they used to climb as boys. "I-I don't want to go, Steve. Please, don't let me go!"

His hands were reaching up to frantically grab at Steve, as if his touch alone could somehow keep Bucky's soul tethered to the earth it was desperate not to leave.

Steve held him that much tighter, drawing him closer in a vain attempt to stave off the reaper.

“Bucky, _Bucchae, please_ , I– what’s wrong, Sweetheart, what’s–? Oh, Gods, please!” 

Steve tried to cling tight, but Bucky's body began to slowly flake away like ash in a dying fire. Bucky’s eyes were wide with a fear Steve hadn’t seen before, he looked like he would plead, if only he could make his vocal cords work. 

Steve reached for Bucky, trying to comfort him in these final moments, but Bucky’s hand crumbled like sand in his grip, slipping through the cracks between Steve’s fingers. 

“No!” Steve raged. "You have to fight this–Bucky, you can't–please, you have to–Bucky, please don't leave me!"

They'd spent thousands of years wondering when their time was going to come, when death would claim one and leave behind the other. Steve wasn’t naive enough to believe in the possibility of a happy ending, especially for heroes like them, but it didn't change the fact that he desperately wanted one with Bucky.

He wanted their home on Lemnos, their goats, the quiet mornings and passionate evenings. Selfishly, he wanted the life they were never meant to have. 

Steve wasn't ready to let go. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and it damn well wasn’t supposed to happen like this. But it was.

“No, no, Bucky– _Bucky_!” 

It was too late. A soft gust of wind swirled by them and Bucky disintegrated before his very eyes, until all that was left was a thick coating of black dust in his hands. 

Behind him, Steve heard similar shouts of shock and despair, but they hardly registered. All he cared about, the only thing Steve had ever cared for in his long and cursed time on earth, was gone. 

There weren’t words. Steve’s throat clammed tight. He didn’t want to cry, didn’t even want to breathe, lest he disturb the dusty remains of his beloved, the moon in Steve’s darkness, the warmth to Steve’s shivering cold, Steve’s everything, his entire world, now reduced to a handful of dust. 

Steve had watched Bucky die countless times in countless horrible ways. It never got easier, and Steve always feared it would be the last time; that he’d be forced to watch Bucky bleed out and fade away. But he’d never truly expected it. He’d never expected it would happen like this. 

Steve stared at his hands, thoughts clouded with the very first time he’d seen Bucky die. He recalled an echo of the rage that had descended on him then; like a red mist, obscuring every thought in Steve’s mind that wasn’t clamoring for revenge, crying out for Hector’s painful death. The force of his anger and pain had almost overwhelmed Steve. It had almost killed him where he stood. But he’d used it, channeled it, it had spurred him on in the waning days of the battle for Troy. Now Steve felt numb, hollowed out like his heart had been snapped away by Thanos too.

He longed for that rage that might spur him into action, as the other survivors staggered towards him, looking misplaced leadership. But he couldn’t offer them anything. Bucky was gone. Truly, irreversibly gone, and Steve felt lost. He didn’t even have a body to hold. 

It wasn’t meant to end like this, they were meant to be together. ‘Til the end of the line, ‘til the end of time. For the first time in his very long life, Steve had no idea what to do. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

_And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone._


	2. Troy - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your comments! ✨

_(Plains of Troy, circa 1180 BC)_

“Name one hero who was happy.” Steve had once asked as they basked by an olive grove near Chiron’s cave; the warm sun on their faces and the sweetest breeze caressing their heat-flushed skin, just as soft fingertips and even softer lips had done the night before. Steve was sixteen, then, Bucky a year older, and the romance that had blossomed between them from the kinship they shared was still so new and raw, yet at its core, was stronger than the mountain that had birthed it.

Of course, Bucky couldn’t name one hero who hadn’t been met with some unspeakable hardship to taint the glory of their deeds. Heracles, Jason, Bellerophon, and Theseus, all sent a grim message to would-be heroes like Steve; then known as Achilles.

“I’m going to be the first,” Steve had arrogantly said, palm pressed firmly against Bucky’s. “Swear it.”

“Why me?” His beloved had asked, as if Bucky hadn’t known his heart and soul were forever intertwined with Steve’s. 

Steve had smiled softly, leaning in for a kiss that only darkened the flush on Bucky’s golden skin. “Because you’re the reason.” 

Steve had believed, as a foolish boy of sixteen would, that their story would be the exception. He could never end up like Heracles, because Steve laying harm to Bucky would simply be impossible, much the same as cutting out his own heart would be. 

Surely the Gods would show them favor, shower them in light and bliss everlasting as he knew they deserved. They would not take Steve’s beloved from him, for they certainly knew the lengths Steve would go if they ever dared to lay a hand on Bucky.

“Swear it,” Steve had implored, with a brilliant shine in his eyes that had since dulled with time and killing. And Bucky did, because he believed it too: that they’d sing songs in their honor, emblazon their image on clay pots so that younger generations could know of their glory; that theirs was a love truly blessed by the Gods.

Of course, Steve never imagined that the song of Achilles would be so difficult to bear. 

It was strange to remember how he’d felt then, bold and reckless, like he could eat the world raw. Now anger bubbled under his skin, always teetering on the precipice of boiling over. The war had dragged on for nearly ten years, with nothing to show for it except the burned and barren plains of Troy, and a restless unhappy army who no longer dreamed of glory, who dreamed only of returning home to their wives and families who might not even recognize them anymore. 

Steve glanced down at Bucky, curled against his side in the cool of their tent. They were neither of them the same as they’d been in Chiron’s cave; angular limbs and elbows, knobbly knees, and jutting collarbones had given way to smooth lines and firm muscles. Bucky’s easy smile was gone too. He tried to hide it, but Steve knew Bucky better than Bucky knew himself. He knew Bucky was furious with Steve’s decision not to fight. Even in sleep, Bucky’s face was creased in concern, and his fists balled in the bed linen. Steve leaned forwards to press a kiss against Bucky’s frown, willing it away. 

Steve hated sitting by whilst other men fought and died. He hated it more than he could let on. But how could Steve bring himself to fight for someone like Agamemnon? 

He knew Bucky didn’t understand. Bucky had spoken his piece about it the first day the men went without Steve’s presence on the battlefield. Steve had listened, stone-faced; almost amused by the way Bucky carefully chose his words, clearly taking pains not to injure Steve's battered pride any further. But that wasn't what Steve wanted from him. Steve was wound up and itching for a fight, any fight. He’d spent the last few days pacing about their camp like a caged lion set to strike, and yet there stood his beloved, unwavering and steady against the angry current that was Steve rage. Weathering Steve’s storm with an infuriating calm. He understood that Steve was upset, he even agreed that Agamemnon was a disgrace, that his greed went too far in his quest to unseat the great Achilles, who had the support of the men set firmly in his grasp. But even Bucky had his limits. His time serving in Machaon’s tent saw to that.

Earlier that morning Bucky had come rushing into their hut, fat tears streaking down his pale face; white tunic stained with blood that was not his own.

"What has happened?" Steve was on his feet in an instant, standing to meet Bucky's weeping form in the mouth of their temporary home. "Are you hurt?"

Bucky shook his head, calming the rising sea inside of Steve that angrily churned at the sight of such distress. He took Bucky into his arms, holding him close as his beloved shook; waiting, tensed, for the breath to return to Bucky's heaving lungs, for him to explain what had upset him so.

"Bucchae," he'd urged moments later, when Bucky had calmed enough to speak. "What's—?"

"It's the men!" Bucky began, voice strangled with pain and his hands gripped tight around Steve’s forearms. "The Trojans have entered the camp, they're burning the ships and slaughtering the men in droves. Ajax is wounded, there’s no one left to save us but you!"

Steve's expression turned cold, and he pulled away, leaving Bucky to grieve on his own by the doorway. He knew what Bucky was asking, and the answer was still no.

"I will not fight." Steve declared, an air of finality in his hardened voice. He watched for Bucky’s reaction and could see the very moment hope abandoned Bucky's reddened eyes. But although Steve longed to comfort him, nothing Steve said could bring it back, because he couldn't—no, _wouldn't_ give in. "I told you before, I will fight for him no longer. Not until he begs, and not until he's returned my prize to me."

"The men are dying! They need—"

"Then it is Agamemnon who's slain them!" Steve snarled, baring his teeth. "He has stolen my honor, and I warned him that his men would pay the price for it. He has brought this on himself."

Bucky was speechless for a long while after that, but the disappointment etched onto his face said more to Steve than words could ever express. In the back of his mind, Steve knew himself to be dangerously arrogant, vain, and in some cases, a greedy, cruel boy; he knew he didn’t deserve the love Bucky offered him each and every day. Especially not now.

But Steve had always been as stubborn as a mule, most times to a fault, and it was always left to Bucky to be the one that conceded if that stubbornness was ever turned on him. Steve expected Bucky to relent, like he always did. But as they stared each other down, Steve saw a darkness that reflected like a blade in the sun, casting those gorgeous grey eyes alight with a rage Steve had never seen in him before; it told him in a language all of their own that Bucky wasn’t about to concede to him this time.

When Bucky did finally speak, the force of his words nearly knocked the wind right out of Steve.

“I never took you for a coward, _Achilles_.” Bucky spat, his tone dripping with malcontent. 

Steve winced, stumbling back a step. But it wasn’t the implication of cowardice that hit Steve like a hard blow to the belly. It was the name Bucky had called him. Steve hadn’t heard his birth name fall from Bucky’s lips since the last night they’d spent in Chiron’s cave. Before this war gobbled them up, grinding their bones to dust between its teeth. 

In hushed whispers spaced between breathless kisses, they had vowed to leave all else behind and disappear, taking new names known only to the other. Of course, their plans to flee Pelion never stood a chance the moment the ever-cunning Odysseus dangled eternal glory before Steve’s eyes; his only known weakness that wasn’t Bucky’s smile.

Steve hadn’t been Achilles to his beloved in years; but because of his unrepentant hubris, he was today.

“Do you not fear that the men will grow to hate you, sulking in your tent while they fight and die for a cause not of their own?” Bucky continued, stalking forward with fire in his eyes, backing Steve up until his calves hit the edge of the bed. “Do you care for nothing but your damned pride?”

“I do,” Steve murmured woundedly, because how could Bucky ask such a thing? “You know I do.”

“Then why do you continue to let your petty squabble with Agamemnon stand in your way? You have a real chance to make a difference,” Bucky poked Steve hard, right in the center of his chest. “Yet still you refuse! How can you live with yourself? How can you even sleep at night?!”

“This is my fight no longer, _Patroclus_!” Steve barked, shouting Bucky’s old name back at him too, because if they’re going to fight, they might as well fight dirty. “You saw what he did, what he said!”

Bucky rolled his eyes, sneering at Steve’s theatrics. 

“Oh, not this again. You’re such a child!”

“ _I’m_ a child?!” Steve roared. “You’re so fucking naive. Why do you even care for them?! This is war! This is what happens!”

Bucky reeled back, horrified; blinking at Steve like he barely even recognized him. “They’re our men, Achilles, and they need our help. How could you be so cold?”

“Oh, so they’re _our_ men now? This is _our_ fight?” Steve knew it was a childish jab, bringing attention to Bucky's lack of prowess on the battlefield, but once he'd started, he just couldn't stop. “You’ve clearly spent too much time with Machaon.” 

Maybe Steve shouldn’t have taken quite so much delight from the anger that blazed behind Bucky’s eyes, but the moment he realized he’d struck a rather sensitive nerve; Steve was itching to slash at it again. 

“I’m helping the best way I know how, unlike you, who won’t move so much as a fucking _finger_ to further our cause!” Bucky raged, shoving Steve backward with a flare of violence that sent Steve crashing into the bed in an undignified heap. It was a familiar position, Steve couldn’t recall a time when a fight between them didn't end in pleasure, and any other time, Steve would swipe Bucky’s legs from under him and pounce, but this was markedly different. All the pent up anger that had settled like tar in Steve’s chest was now boiling up to the surface. He knew that Bucky was undeserving of it, but Steve had no one else to unleash it upon.

He leapt to his feet in one smooth movement and pushed back, adding a bit too much strength behind the motion, sending Bucky back to hit the hard floor with a thump. The regret that coursed through Steve’s veins was instantaneous, dizzying, having to watch Bucky fall like that. Seeing him sprawled on the ground, knowing that he alone had put him there, was more than enough to douse the raging flames within Steve’s restless heart. 

For the first time in their lives, it was Steve who conceded to Bucky. He stepped forwards with uncharacteristic hesitancy, swallowing a lump in his throat as Bucky tensed. Steve dropped to his knees before Bucky and took Bucky’s face in his palms; gently smoothing away the sorrow that pinched his features with soft sweeps of his thumbs. 

“What would you have me do?” Steve asked. 

Bucky didn't lean into the touch as he usually did, but mercifully, he allowed Steve to cradle his cheeks and to wipe away the tears that wet them. It was the first time he'd ever made Bucky cry like this, and Steve hated himself for it.

“You know what needs to be done." Bucky’s voice was quiet but firm; trying one last time to make Steve heed to reason. "The men need a hero, something to fight for. They’re weary, and I know you are too, but if the Trojans burn those ships they’ll never see home again. You would willingly leave them to such a fate?”

“Not willingly." Steve pursed his lips, sighing heavily through his nose. He could see Bucky's point, but for the sake of his stolen honor, he could not give in. “Bucchae, I—you know I cannot relent. Not on this.” Tears pricked at his own eyes. 

“If you will not fight for Agamemnon,” Bucky changed tack, he must have known full well what Steve's answer would be, yet he asked anyway. “Will you send me in your place? Give me your armor. Send me to fight if you will not. I may not be _Aristos Achaion_ , but I must do something." Bucky brought his hands up to cover Steve’s which were still clutched tight to Bucky’s jaw. Steve’s grip tightened on instinct as the words sunk in. 

His expression fell. Not this. Anything but this. He shook his head and felt a lone tear track down his cheek. _No_ , he mouthed without sound. “If you truly loved me, you would not ask such a thing of me.”

Bucky leaned into Steve’s touch now, nuzzling against the palm of Steve’s hand. “You know I love you, which is _why_ I must ask this of you. You will not have to break your oath, yet Greece will be saved. Your reputation will be saved. _Stéphanos_ , let me do this for you.”

“But you cannot fight.” Steve didn’t speak with malice this time, but with fear. 

“If I wear your armor, I will not have to. They’re so frightened of you, if I show myself, they will run.”

Steve didn’t want to allow it, he hated the idea of putting Bucky at risk. The thought alone felt like an arrowhead lodged into his heart. But what other choice did they have? If the boats were burned, if the Grecian army were slaughtered whilst he sulked, his reputation would be ruined. And perhaps, this would be the greatest insult to Agamemnon of all; showing them all that Steve’s phantom, the mere threat of the great Achilles, was more powerful than Agamemnon’s whole army. 

“Swear to me,” Steve said, tipping his head forward until their foreheads were pressed together. “Swear to me that if you go, you will not fight them. You will stay in the chariot and let the Myrmidons go in front of you.”

“Yes.” Bucky agreed easily. He pulled Steve’s left hand from his face and held it clasped against his heart. “Of course. I am not mad. To frighten them, that is all.”

“And you _will not_ fight Hector. Swear it.”

“I swear.” 

Bucky surged up then and locked his lips to Steve’s, drawing them both up until they knelt in the middle of the room, drinking each other in, their hands still clasped between them. Steve could feel Bucky’s heart fluttering in his chest, he could almost taste his excitement like lightning on his tongue. But all Steve sensed was dread. It stayed with him, lodged where the anger had carved a home in his gut, heavier than lead. And when Bucky curled beside him to sleep, Steve found himself resolutely awake, staring at the ceiling of their hut and holding close to Bucky; praying that tomorrow would go well. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

Steve knelt before Bucky and carefully buckled him into the armor piece by piece; the sleek bronze breastplate, the leather underskirt, shoulder guards, and greaves that had been so highly polished it almost hurt to look at them. Steve tightened and adjusted everything as much as possible to suit Bucky’s build, focusing on the task at hand, trying to quell the nagging voice at the back of his mind that told him he should be the one leading the charge. He triple checked that everything would hold, that nothing pinched, that everything was secure, before stepping back to admire the look and check that the deception would hold.

“Well, how does it look?” Bucky asked, jutting out his jaw and making a concentrated effort to mask his fear. 

“Try the helmet,” Steve said in lieu of answering. It was strange, seeing Bucky in his armor, stranger still not to be gearing up to fight beside him. He held the gleaming helmet out to Bucky who lowered it gingerly onto his head and adjusted the cheek irons to sit comfortably on his face. Steve let out a gasp. With his dark hair hidden, and the horsehair plume tossing around his head, Bucky was transformed. He looked taller, like the armor had imbued him with a different kind of confidence, and with the irons cutting across his cheekbones, his eyes looked darker; less grey and more like the deep blue of Steve’s own. 

“Will they believe it?”

“Gods, yes, even _I_ believe it.” Steve gasped. Bucky was right, the armor was unmistakable, instantly recognizable, and it carried a threat. Steve had no doubt that the Trojans would flee before it. The feeling of an arrowhead lodged in his chest returned at the sight, and Steve almost choked on it. He couldn’t decide if it was fear, or pride, or maybe even jealousy. “Remember your promise? Do not fight. Stay away from the city walls. Come back to me.”

“I promise,” Bucky assured Steve, and Steve desperately wanted to believe it. He gripped Bucky by the helmet and kissed him, hard, ignoring the way the chin guards dug into Steve’s cheeks, ignoring the restlessness that began to rise in his throat again, like bile. 

“It is time.”

The Myrmidons were lined up by the gate to their compound in fearless rows of flashing, gleaming armor like a shoal of fish skipping through the waves. Their energy and excitement at rejoining the fight were palpable, and Steve felt almost guilty he’d denied them for so long. Almost. 

“Do not leave the chariot, do not throw your spears—”

“I know. I will be alright.” Bucky gripped Steve’s arm and gave him a hard look. Coming from Steve’s armor and Bucky’s darkened eyes, it was enough to make Steve retreat with a nod. 

He stepped back and watched Bucky climb up into the chariot. He watched Automedon take the reins, watched Bucky balance the spears in his hands, and the horses snort and blow in anticipation. Words crowded together on Steve’s tongue, there were so many things he wanted to call out, so many tips, so many warnings, but most of all, the thousand and one things Steve loved about him. Steve almost called Bucky back, but he held his tongue. There would be time—later, once Bucky returned, tomorrow, and all the days after that. 

The gates were opened and Automedon spurred the horses into action, they worked in tandem, and soon the chariot was swept from view, the Myrmidons clattering after, until Steve was left alone.

He heard the shouts almost immediately, _“Achilles! It is Achilles!”_ , and smiled. 

It was as Bucky said. It would be alright. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're aiming to update weekly, so check back next weekend 😊😊
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!


	3. Troy - Part Two

Steve stood on the ridge near their tent, watching as the blurred shapes of war moved steadily across the blood-stained sand. He couldn’t see Bucky or the chariot among the writhing mass of bodies any longer; the glint of swords, spears, and shields casting a dull shimmer across the battlefield that hid his beloved from sight, just as the gem-like shine of the Aegean masked the fish that swam beneath the surface. 

The movement of the sun across the sky confirmed what his restless heart was almost certain of, that hours–not minutes as his mind would have liked to believe–had quickly passed him by, and even though he trusted that Bucky would keep his word and eventually return to him, he couldn't seem to shake the abject sense of  _ wrongness _ that had settled deep within his spirit like rot, festering from the moment he’d sent Bucky off to fight in his stead.

It should have been Steve out there leading the men, beating back the Trojans with his spear and shield. Of course, he knew the Myrmidons would keep a watchful eye on Bucky, even sacrifice their own lives without question if that’s what it took to protect him. It should have been a comfort to him, knowing that his beloved’s life was cradled in their hands. But it wasn’t.

The writhing pile of bodies was like a gorgon’s face, twisting like snakes until the soldiers had gathered in a dark knot at the base of Troy, fighting over something Steve couldn’t quite see.

Perhaps a Prince or a King had been slain? Not much was made clear to him, and from this far away, Steve only had his imagination there to fill in the blanks the scene left open for him.

He didn’t like the image it painted.

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

As dusk rapidly approached, painting the skyline in fiery shades of red, Steve could just barely make out the hulking shape of Menelaus coming up the hill where Steve stood. He was carrying something in his arms, moving slow and sullen as if the thought of coming closer to Steve was far too much for him to bear.

Perhaps it was Agamemnon who fell? Steve almost felt guilty at the surge of satisfaction that news would bring. But whatever he was carrying seemed to belong to Steve, as he couldn’t really see Menelaus presenting the corpse of his brother to the man that was so at odds with him.

Although baffled as to what it could be, the sight left a bitter feeling in the pit of Steve’s stomach. The grim set of Menelaus' brow and the almost tender way he clutched at the bloodied heap in his arms wasn’t helping any either, but clarity would soon come. Steve was sure of it. 

The soft breeze rolling off the sea was quick to disrupt the makeshift shroud that covered the crumpled thing, coming loose around the edges as if to answer Steve’s unspoken question for him; a tanned hand smeared with rusty earth, and a grass-stained foot missing its sandal quickly coming into view.

The bitterness in his core turned sour in an instant, watching as thick drops of blood gathered on the tips of those exposed fingers and fell into the sand at Menelaus’ feet. It was then that Steve noticed that Odysseus was at Menelaus’ side, limping on an injured leg that still had the broken end of an arrowhead sticking out of it. They looked as ragged and wartorn as Steve felt, and absently, he had the fleeting thought of Bucky in Machaon’s tent, tending to the many wounds of the men he’d grown to love as brothers over their long years spent on the beaches of Troy. 

Steve needed no reminder that Bucky wasn’t with Machaon. He knew his beloved was still out there on the Trojan battlefield, wearing the armor that Steve himself had covered him with, but he wondered, briefly, why Bucky hadn’t yet returned to him. Surely, the battle must be waning if Menelaus was coming to speak with him, and Odysseus, as wounded as he may be, would still be among the men if the fighting hadn’t ceased for the day.

So, where was he?

Menelaus stopped before him, still cradling the shrouded body, and the wisp of long, dark hair that fell along the arm should have been the moment when clarity tore Steve's heart from his chest, but it wasn’t. It was the gentle way Odysseus said his name, as if he were a small child who wouldn’t understand the hard truth he was about to reveal.

“Pelides,” Odysseus quietly murmured, a warm hand coming to rest on Steve’s trembling shoulder. “There is something we must tell you.”

Steve held up his palm and shook his head, not wanting to hear what he’d already come to know was true. That the form beneath that shroud was Bucky’s.

With a shaking hand and a lurching stomach, Steve pulled back the bloodied linen, and once he saw what was waiting for him underneath, he instantly wished he hadn't.

The small sound that escaped his constricted throat at the sight of those glassy grey eyes, staring accusingly up at him, was hardly human, but in Steve's mind, he'd stopped being human the moment he let Bucky take his place on the battlefield, because what kind of monster would put his pride before the safety of the man he claimed to love?

Steve would, and he had.

He stood there for a few long moments, his hand gently cupping the pale, swollen apple of Bucky’s cheek, and he watched, completely paralyzed, as a drop of blackened blood sluggishly slid from the corner of Bucky’s parted lips, smearing against the skin of his palm. 

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could barely even breathe around the crushing weight of his grief, and the instant he tried to utter Bucky’s name, his quivering legs gave out from under him, sending Steve to his knees.

He clutched at Bucky’s limp hand, staring numbly at the blood that wet his skin. He screamed, then, finally letting loose the pain that had been struggling to free itself from his aching chest.

Odysseus was saying something to him, touching his face to wipe away the wetness he found there, but Steve could not hear him. He wailed like an infant when Menelaus knelt to place the body in his lap, and he would have killed them both where they stood for the part they played in causing Bucky’s death, but he didn't want to let go of Bucky.

Bucky’s body was already growing cold, a chill set into his skin like the time they’d spent too long splashing in the river on Mount Pelion and Steve had held Bucky close, kissing his shoulders and rubbing warmth back into his icy hands. As much as Steve tried to imagine it was the same, he knew that this time no amount of tender caresses, no blankets on earth could restore the warmth that was seeping from Bucky, dragging him down to an all-together different kind of river. 

“You promised.” Steve murmured, pressing futile kisses into Bucky’s cheeks. His tears spilled over and splashed on Bucky’s face, mingling with the blood that dripped from Bucky’s downturned mouth. “You promised you would come back to me.” But he knew that Bucky was not to blame. The fault was Steve’s. Agamemnon's. And whichever bastard had slain his beloved. “Who did this?” He asked with a cracked and broken voice. 

It was Menelaus who answered. “Hector.” 

Hector. The knowledge sunk like a stone in Steve’s gut, where it was engulfed by the brimming tide of his anger. It surged like a wave that could have sunk Agamenmon’s entire fleet, and swept any all thoughts and desires, leaving only desperation for revenge. “Then he is dead.”

Steve rose to his feet, fluidly, unencumbered by Bucky’s body which still lay cradled in his arms. He stalked through the compound to their hut and set Bucky down gently on the bed, taking a moment to arrange him comfortably in repose, sweeping his tangled, blood-matted hair back from his forehead and chasing it with a gentle kiss. All traces of his frown were gone now, and,  _ oh _ , how Steve wished to see it back. He closed Bucky’s eyes and pulled a blanket around him in a vain attempt to stave off the chill, but he didn’t let it cover his face. He wouldn’t drape it over Bucky like a shroud. 

Steve’s hands were shaking when he finally stepped away, and his breath was ragged. He had to fight for every gulp of air as it caught on his grief which had lodged itself like a boulder at the back of his throat. He tried to swallow it down, but it wouldn’t budge, and so Steve gulped around it, like a drowning man, as he donned Bucky’s armor and grabbed his spear. 

He didn’t bother to buckle it properly, and the cuirass rattled as he walked, gaping over Steve’s blood-stained tunic. Odysseus tried to stop him, he grabbed at Steve’s arm, but as soon as he saw the ferocity in Steve’s gaze he backed off. 

“He has gone back inside the city,” Odysseus warned. “Wait until tomorrow.”

Steve made no reply, other than a low growl that seemed to emanate from deep within his chest. 

“Listen to me, Pelides. Tomorrow you can kill him. I swear it. Now you must eat, and rest.”

“No. Hector will not live to see another sunrise.” Steve snarled and took off at a run. 

The plains were almost deserted, barren and eerie in the wake of the day’s battle; filled with broken chariots half-submerged in mud along the bank of Troy's wide river, littered spears, and corpses that were being retrieved by both armies so that they could be given the proper burial rites. Steve ran through them all, ignoring their stares as he passed. He splashed through the river, not stopping until he stood under the towering walls of Troy itself. 

“HECTOR!” Steve screamed up at the walls, with a cry ripped from his lungs in pure despair. Shadows crowded against the parapets. The archers could have shot him down if they’d tried, but none of them did. Perhaps they were too afraid of his rage. It shone from him like the glare of a midday sun. There had always been rumors about ‘godlike Achilles’, about his true parentage, and at that moment he certainly looked like the son of a god. 

“HECTOR!” He bellowed again and again. Unceasing, unrelenting, long past when his voice grew hoarse and desperate. His anger churned, frustration and impatience set it. If Hector didn’t come down to face him soon, Steve might have tried to scale the walls. He’d kill half of Troy if that’s what it took for Steve to find Hector, to make him pay. 

“HECTOR!”

A rumble came from inside the city that let Steve know the gates were being opened. Only then did he fall silent. He gripped his spear and swallowed down deep breaths of air, before prowling to stand right in the center of the great wooden doors. Chains rattled as they were drawn up, and the doors groaned as they swung outwards, revealing Hector. Alone. Armed, and still bloody from his day on the battlefield. He had cleaned his sword and washed his face, but blood and mud were still splattered up his legs. Steve couldn’t help but wonder how much of it belonged to Bucky, and it made his skin crawl. 

“I've seen this moment in my dreams,” Hector called out when he was about ten paces away from Steve. 

The gates closed back up behind him with a dull thud, leaving them alone. Steve knew the walls above would be crowded with spectators, but he had eyes only for Hector. He snarled, making no attempt to reply. He hadn’t come here to talk. 

“I'll make a pact with you, with the gods as our witnesses. Let us pledge that the winner will allow the loser all the proper funeral rituals.” Hector proposed with an insulting sense of calm. How could he stand there! Marked with Bucky’s blood! And think to make pacts with Steve?!

“There are no pacts between lions and men.” Steve spat. He threw his helmet to the ground. Not  _ his _ helmet. That had been stripped from Bucky’s body and claimed as some fucking  _ trophy _ . “Now you know who you are fighting.”

Hector’s shoulders slumped, for a moment he looked truly sorry, but Steve knew that was not grief for Bucky. He grieved for his own life, about to be cut short. Hector knew he was a dead man walking; he could surely read it in the hatred in Steve’s eyes. 

“I thought it was you I was fighting. I wish it had been you. But I gave the dead boy the honor he —”

“You gave him the honor of your sword!” Steve screamed back. “I will kill you.” He promised. “I will kill you and eat you raw.” Steve raised his spear and launched with a deadly aim. Anyone less skilled would have been struck where they stood, but Hector’s reflexes were lightning-fast and he whirled away, drawing his sword in a smooth motion and wheeling back to clash against Steve. 

Steve parried the blow and used his shield to push Hector back, before leaping into a graceful strike. Hector tried to block it, but it clipped the edge of his shield and the force behind Steve’s blow brought it down on Hector’s exposed elbow, slashing through muscle right down to the bone. Hector gasped and dropped his shield. Steve capitalized on his advantage by driving the hilt of his sword up into Hector’s face and following up with a kick to the stomach that sent him reeling backward. Hector tried to regroup, he tucked his injured arm to his side and swung hard and fast with his sword, but Steve danced out of the way.

Steve felt cheated, he’d counted on a real fight — a real outlet for all of his anger and frustration. Hector was meant to be a force equal to Steve’s own. He slashed again at the weak points in Hector’s armor and then, building on the momentum, swung low to cut Hector’s legs out from under him. Hector went down with a dull thud that kicked up the dirt. He scrambled back, but before he could stagger to his feet, Steve plucked his spear from where it had landed nose down in the earth. He hefted it into his grip, turned, and launched. It flew like a dark whirl-wind, bright as the evening star, to catch the hollow at Hector’s throat and speared him to the ground. 

Steve felt no satisfaction from watching the life bleed out of Hector’s eyes. It wasn’t enough. It did nothing to quiet the roaring tide of his grief. He tipped his head back and beat his chest, letting out a blood-curdling roar. Why wasn’t it enough? If only he could kill Hector a thousand times, then it might begin to tip the scales. 

The Trojans crowded on the parapets had begun to wail for their fallen prince, and Steve heard the tell-tale rumble that indicated the gates were about to open again. Steve felt distraught, if possible, even more devastated than he had before he set out to kill Hector; at least then he had a target to channel his anger. Without it, Steve felt unmoored. There was one thing he was certain of, though; he wasn’t about to let the Trojans have Hector’s body. Hector didn’t deserve peace in the afterlife. 

He ripped the reins off a broken chariot and lashed them around Hector’s ankles, dragging the prince through the dirt in his wake as he trekked back to the Grecian camp. No one was foolish enough to challenge him, though Steve wished they had. His blood was still boiling, his soul still craved a fight and Steve had killed the only one truly capable of challenging him. 

The sun slipped into the sea before him as he strode back through the battlefield towards the beach. It hovered like a great red disk, that shimmered on the horizon and set the sky on fire in a mocking parody of the blood-soaked earth that squelched beneath his feet. Steve dragged Hector’s body through it all, face down. His anger ebbed as he heaved Hector behind him, it fizzled out like the fading daylight until he was left with a hollow numb apathy. 

The kings of Greece were waiting for Steve when he returned. Steve glowered at them, but they did not move aside.

“You have triumphed today, Achilles.” Agamemnon congratulated him, oblivious, or more likely uncaring, about Steve’s turmoil. “Bathe, and rest yourself, and then we shall feast in your honor.”

Steve’s voice was reduced to an ashy whisper when he spoke, but the weight of it carried through the compound none-the-less. “I will have no feast.” He pushed them all aside, dragging Hector through the dust and dirt, dumping the corpse unceremoniously outside the door of his hut. 

Steve felt tired with a bone-deep weariness that no sleep could abate. What was the point? To glory and honor, all of this ceaseless fighting? What was the point of a world without Bucky? Inside, safe from prying eyes, Steve let himself stumble. He fell into the closest wall and threw out an arm to hold himself upright, staggering along with his hand trailing along the wall for the support until he reached the shadow of his room — their room — and to the bed he’d made into Bucky’s bire. 

His eyes fell upon the lump on the mattress, barely visible through the partition and he choked back a sob, both desperate to take Bucky back into his arms and certain he wouldn’t be strong enough to face the sight of Bucky’s body. But when he pushed it open and let light from the sconces in the hall spill across the bed, Steve saw not the supine form of Bucky’s body as Steve had left him hours before, but a figure sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bedclothes. A pair of bright-grey eyes peered out, startled from the darkness. Bucky. 


	4. Troy - Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your comments! Sorry for all the angst, there will be some fluff to balance it out soon 💙
> 
> (Content Warning: mentions / thoughts of suicide - see end notes for more info)

Bucky awoke with a pained gasp, his wide grey eyes snapped open as his hands came up instinctively to try and deflect yet another of Hector’s vicious blows. Yet to his surprise, the nauseating bite of iron splitting his skin never came again, and the absence of the sounds of battle told him that Hector had long since abandoned him, leaving Bucky in the dirt where he'd ruthlessly cut him down.

Bucky cautiously lowered his hands when the threat of a sword to the belly couldn't be found, and he jumped, startled when his palms felt the soft fur and linen of a bed beneath him rather than the coarse earth of Troy's battlefield; the blankets still smelling faintly of sweat, sex, and _Steve_ from the night before.

He realised he was back in the relative safety of the Grecian camp, but he couldn't recall how he'd come to be here. Had someone found his body? Perhaps they’d brought it back to prepare it for burial?

Bucky's mind was still in a bit of a fog, his thoughts trickled out, slow and syrupy like raw honey dripping from a honeycomb. He remembered the fight, his broken promise to Steve, and the sickening feeling of Hector’s spear piercing the delicate flesh of his thigh and belly. But as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, taking in the strange familiarity of the hut he shared with Steve, he couldn’t recall how he’d ended up here; lying in their bed, as if the whole thing had been some sort of vivid nightmare.

Of course, Bucky knew that his death hadn’t been a dream. The pain and fear he’d felt, and the still present taste of blood and dirt lingering in his mouth was an all too real reminder of his final moments among the living.

What had he been thinking, going after Hector like that? Sure, he'd killed Sarpadon with an well-placed spear to the chest, and he'd admit that the loud cheering and the fierce support of the men sang to a part of him he'd long since tried to bury — as sweetly as a siren luring him out to sea — but the fact remained that he'd broken his promise to Steve, and paid for it with his life.

Oh, Gods. _Steve._ Bucky shuddered to imagine how his death would affect his beloved once Steve had been told, but if Bucky had been brought back here and placed in their bed, then perhaps Steve already knew. It only made his absence that much more alarming, because Bucky knew that Steve, in his grief, would be hard to remove from his side. Bucky had always known that death wouldn't be enough to part them; their lifelines were forever intertwined, so much so that the fates could not cut one life short without also ending the other.

So where was Steve? Where was his beloved?

Though his body did protest, Bucky moved to sit up on the bed, kicking off the blanket that had been draped over him to the floor below. But almost as soon as he was upright, pain came over him, so strong that it pulled the air from his lungs. Bucky doubled over as his stomach ached and roiled, as if the muscles and skin around his wounds were knitting themselves back together. The bones in his left arm—as well as a cracked rib or two—shifted and pulled, snapping back into position so suddenly it forced a pained yelp from his mouth.

Bucky fell back onto the bed, convulsing in what must have been his death throes. He must have been carried back injured then, maybe Steve had gone to Machaon’s tent for help. Bucky called for him, letting out a whimper. _Steve!_ He didn't want to die alone.

Bucky screwed his eyes shut and gasped through the last of the pain until he was left with nothing. Calm settled over him and sunk deep into his bones. Nothing hurt, not even the ache in his wrist that had been ever present since he'd tumbled from a tree as a child. Not the tension that came from clenching his jaw through all of Steve's stubbornness. Nothing. _This must be what death feels like_ , Bucky thought. He lay still for a moment, apprehensive, but he could still feel the soft furs beneath him, he could still hear the faint roar of the waves crashing in the beach outside. With caution, Bucky cracked open an eye, almost afraid of what he might see, but rather than the foggy grey landscape he'd expected to find on the banks of the river Styx, Bucky was most definitely still in Steve's bed.

Confusion and panic quickly gave way to despair. He'd been denied passage to the underworld. Left as a ghost, lingering in the land of the living like an echo, or a shadow. A footprint in fine sand. Until Steve, or someone, gave him the proper burial rites, Bucky knew he would be doomed to cling on as a mockery of life. He sat up again, moving with ease this time, his limbs graceful and lighter than he remembered them being before. He hugged his knees to his chest and inhaled a shaky breath, or at least his body imitated breathing; who knew if he even needed air anymore? He was still able to cry, though, this phantom version of himself, as evidenced by the tears that slid steadily down his cheeks.

Bucky felt cold, and more alone than he’d felt since his father had shipped him off in exile. He pulled a blanket around his shoulders shivering with more than a physical chill. He could only hope Steve would return for him soon and grant him the peace he craved.

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

He sat there, curled in on himself for what felt like ages, wallowing in his despair and the newfound sense of restlessness that wrapped him up tightly in an icy embrace. Occasionally, he would hear voices passing by the mouth of their hut; Odysseus, Menelaus, Briseis, and strangely, Agamemnon. Briseis wept, but did not enter. And though there was talk by the others about a great victory for the Grecian army, Steve still had not come back.

Bucky waited, hoping against hope that his beloved hadn’t abandoned his own life in the wake of his immense grief; hadn’t taken matters into his own hands to join Bucky on the other side of the river Styx, as Steve often alluded that he’d gladly do.

There wasn’t a doubt in Bucky’s mind that Steve, without hesitation, would cross over for him. He’d march straight into the Underworld and kill Hades himself if he believed it would bring Bucky back to him. But Steve would wake up in a green field with the sun on his face, not trapped in the Underworld with Bucky. Elysium was a place for heroes, and Bucky was no hero.

“You have triumphed today, Achilles.” Agamemnon’s voice startled Bucky, so close to the hut he could almost smell the wine on the man’s breath. “Bathe, and rest yourself, and then we shall feast in your honor.”

Bucky’s heart quickened—or, perhaps that was a phantom sensation? The last bit of his spirit still clinging to his body?—and he sat up straight, watching the mouth of the hut with wide eyes, terrified of what he might see when Steve entered their private domain.

“I will have no feast,” Steve murmured in reply, and Bucky could hear the unmasked agony in his trembling voice, the way his tired feet moved simply for the sake of motion; without purpose or cause. It made Bucky’s heart ache to think he could not bring his beloved the comfort he needed. Surely, as a ghost, or a lingering spirit, Steve would not be able to see him, or touch him, but perhaps that was for the best. It would only widen the jagged wound in Steve’s chest to press lips and skin against that of a ghost’s.

The sullen sound of footsteps became louder, and Bucky winced as the fresh scent of warm blood and sand hit his nose, telling him what he already knew. Hector was dead, slain at the hands of Steve in cold-blooded revenge for what he’d done to Bucky.

Steve pulled back the cloth at the entrance to their room, and a pained gasp left Bucky’s throat, unbidden, at the sight of Hector’s blood on Steve’s skin.

Steve froze at the sound, turning toward the bed where Bucky sat, cross legged and rigid.

“Hector is dead.” The words had passed Bucky lips before he even knew he was speaking, but despite his earlier assumption, Steve seemed to be able to see him, if the way his skin blanched white as a bone was any indication.

Steve didn’t respond to the accusation beyond a shaky nod of his head, his tongue a leaden weight in the bottom of his mouth. They both knew what that meant for Steve. The priestess on Pelion had been quite clear: If Steve killed Hector, he would never see home again. His blood would water the fields of Troy, like that of the dead Greeks and Trojans, as Bucky’s did now. Only his memory would live on.

“You…” Steve worked his jaw open and closed before he found words that normally came so easily for him. “You were _dead_. I held you…”

“I am.” Bucky said with as much soft tenderness as he could to soften the blow.

Steve’s brow creased in pain. “A ghost?” He asked, sounding so uncharacteristically scared and uncertain.

“I must be.” Bucky agreed.

“How?”

Bucky didn’t know, he glanced down at his arms and turned them over, as if the answer might be written down the tracks of his veins, of course it wasn’t. “I am not sure.” Bucky had seen death plenty of times—no matter how much skill Machaon had with healing, more men had died in that tent than had been saved—but Bucky had never seen the dead linger on like this.

“It must be punishment.” Steve decided, sounding distraught. “The gods mean to taunt me. For my denial of Hector.”

Bucky didn’t need to know what Steve meant by that, the smell of death lingered outside their tent. If Steve had bothered to drag Hector’s body all the way back to camp, it wasn’t to perform the burial rites himself.

He stared up at Steve’s face and the gaunt, hollow look in his eyes. “Does your vengeance taste sweet, Philtatos?" Bucky murmured, crestfallen. "Does it ease the pain you feel?” Bucky had often spoken of the prophecy, even begged Steve not to fight Hector on more than one occasion, but Steve had never seen why Bucky was so shaken up by a priestess’ words.

 _“I would not kill him,”_ Steve would always say when Bucky brought it up. Steve saw no reason to fret because he’d always been so assured that he controlled his own destiny, and that he would not go where Bucky couldn’t follow. _“What has Hector ever done to me?”_

If only they’d known then the things they knew now.

Steve was silent, tears pricking his eyes as his throat struggled to work against the rising tide of his grief. His back was to the door, his trembling form silhouetted by the ghostly glow of moonlight. It made the blood on his skin appear as black as onyx.

“It tastes bitter,” Steve whispered, his voice a broken rasp; a pitiful thing. “His blood on my tongue brings me no comfort. No relief. I will find none in a world without you.”

It hurt Bucky’s heart to hear it, and it pained him to see Steve grieving, but as much as Bucky longed to go to Steve, to comfort him, he knew there was nothing he could do.

Steve crossed over to where Bucky still sat curled on the bed and sunk to his knees an arm’s length away. Steve’s hands twitched by his side, and up close, Bucky could see the tear tracks that streaked through the dirt and blood on Steve’s face. He had to fight against the instinct to reach out and touch, he didn’t want to marr the memory of Steve’s smooth skin, warm and firm under his fingertips with whatever icy chill his phantom hands would feel now. When Steve reached out, Bucky flinched back.

“Don’t.” He warned. “Don’t touch me.” Bucky knew he wouldn’t be able to cope if Steve’s hand sunk right through him like mist. He knew Steve wouldn’t be able to bear it either. Steve’s expression turned a shade more distraught, his heartbreak was evident in his eyes. “I don’t want you to remember me like this.” Bucky explained, pleaded really. “Remember last night.” Bucky implored, when they’d lain together after their augment had fizzled out. When Steve had held him close, peppered kisses across his clavicle, down his stomach, and his thighs. When they’d moved as one, slick with oil and sweat, hearts pounding in sync as they crested the wave of pleasure in unison together. When they’d fallen asleep, still entwined. When tomorrow had been full of hopefully opportunity, not the end of all things. “Remember, and bury me. _Stéphanos_ , burn me and bury me. I will wait for you among the shades.”

“No.” Steve’s expression turned hard.

“You would leave me? Condemn me? As a vrykolakas...a _revenant_?”

“No.” Steve shook his head with one sharp shake. “Not for long. We will burn together. My men will see that our ashes are mingled. We will lie together in death as we did in life.”

“Do not throw away your life for me, Stéphanos.” Bucky beseeched.

“What life?” Steve asked with a bitter laugh. “There is no life for me without you.”

Steve drew his dagger from his belt and Bucky saw his intent written clearly across his face. Bucky didn’t hesitate, he flung out an arm to stay Steve’s hand and they were both shocked when Bucky’s hand clamped around Steve’s wrist and held firm.

“Don’t you dare.” Now that Bucky knew he could touch Steve, he worked that to his advantage and ripped the dagger from Steve’s grip and threw it across the room. “You deserve a hero’s death, Stéphanos.”

Steve shook his head as thick, fat tears rolled off his chin. Bucky wiped them away with the pad of his thumb. Steve’s skin still felt warm under his hand, and he brought the other up to frame Steve’s face. His fingers tingled at the sensation, and when he leant forwards to press their foreheads together, he felt warmth there too. Steve’s breath tickled at Bucky’s throat and Bucky had an intense desire to press his body flush against Steve’s and feel his warmth everywhere.

“I killed Hector. You killed Sarpedon. There is no one left.”

“Others will come to take their place.” Bucky assured him. He brushed Steve’s long blonde hair back from his face and pressed a gentle kiss to his temple. “There will be other battles. There will be good that you can do in this world. Let me go, Stéphanos. Kill me properly.” Bucky’s throat ached as fresh tears built behind his eyes. “I don’t belong here. Let me be at peace.”

“Not until I can join you.” Steve pressed his mouth into a line, stubborn as ever.

Bucky pulled away from him then, turning his back to Steve as he shook; arms wrapped tightly around himself. Steve didn’t immediately close the gap between them, as he normally did when Bucky was upset. They’d reached an impasse, and Bucky knew that Steve would not give way unless Bucky forced his hand. To do so left a bitter taste in his mouth, one that Bucky would never be rid of if he went through with this, but the thought of spending eternity trapped on the wrong side of the Underworld was a fate he was not willing to accept. The fact that Steve refused to grant him peace in his greatest hour of need, was a blow he never thought he could recover from.

In hindsight, it was Steve’s decision that made Bucky cross the room, to fetch the discarded dagger with a singular purpose to end his own suffering. Vrykolakas were never treated with kindness in the stories Bucky had heard, the only hope he could see was to be killed properly. But...he could not do this on his own. A ghost could not set themselves free. He needed Steve to understand the pain he was in, and even though it would be an unthinkable request to ask, it had to be done.

With a steadying breath, Bucky turned to face Steve, dagger in hand.

“Philtatos, you know that I will always be with you,” Bucky began, crossing the distance he’d put between them with a few uneasy steps. The intent in his eyes was clear, then, and Steve backed away, shaking his head vehemently. His back hit the far wall, eyes wide and wet with his own tears. Seeing an opportunity to stop Steve from fleeing, Bucky boxed him in against the wall, grabbing his unwilling hand to press the hilt of the dagger into Steve’s palm; wrapping Steve’s weakened fingers around it with his own and holding them tightly.

“No,” Steve tried to pull away, but Bucky wouldn’t let him. His grip on Steve was surprisingly strong for that of a ghost, and Steve, unwilling to use the force he needed, turned to words instead; begging as he’d never done before. It broke what was left of Bucky's heart to hear him plead like that, knowing that he alone could put an end to Steve’s pain, but what other choice did he have?

“No, no. No, you _cannot_ ask this of me! I will not do it! I haven’t the strength, Bucchae. _Please_ don’t make me do this.”

“You have to,” Bucky sobbed, “If you do not kill me now, I will be doomed to roam this earth as I am, undead and alone. We will never meet in the afterlife if my spirit is trapped within my body. Stéphanos, _please_ , you must set me free!”

When Steve still refused, Bucky took matters into his own hands, raising their joined hands to press the blade of the dagger firmly against the skin of his neck. The very same spot Steve had lovingly kissed the night before.

The sharpened iron bit into Bucky’s neck, and a drop of wine-colored blood welled up to the surface, running down his neck to wet the collar of his tunic; the garment already stained beyond saving with carnage from his fight with Hector.

"Philtatos, _please_!" Steve wailed, but his hand remained still. One wrong move was all it would take. "I can't!"

"You must!"

Steve’s entire body was pulled tight like a bow string, pleading and crying for Bucky to _stop_ , but just when Bucky was about to slide the dagger across his throat, forcing Steve to free his spirit, they heard a soft voice coming from just outside their home.

Bucky froze, instantly recognizing its owner as they called out for Steve. Oh, God. _Briseis_.

"Achilles," she called out, and though Bucky ached to see her, he knew he couldn't. It was bad enough that Steve had to see him this way, this mockery of who he was in life. Bucky would do anything to spare her that pain, just as he wished he could have saved Steve.

Their eyes met in the darkness; a silent conversation in a language all their own. Briseis would not be allowed to see him this way, though Steve had a reason for denying her that was very different from Bucky’s pure intentions.

Bucky slowly lowered the knife, and Steve’s eyes fell to the wound on his neck; already starting to close.

"Stay here," Steve said, his raw voice barely a whisper. Bucky could only nod, backing up a step to let Steve slip past him. Bucky knew that this wasn’t over. Steve had dug his heels in, but Bucky wasn't about to let up. In time, Steve would come around, Bucky knew he would, but Bucky wasn’t sure how much time they had left.

The prophecy was clear. If Steve killed Hector, then he would never see home again. He would die here, buried under the Trojan sand. A life cut short in pursuit of eternal glory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: misplaced belief that Bucky is a lingering spirit and needs to be 'killed properly' to pass over to the underworld, some 'song of achilles' typical thoughts of suicide from Steve longing to join Bucky in death.
> 
> Glossary: 
> 
> **Vrykolakas** \- a harmful, undead creature in Greek folklore. Ancient Greeks believed that the dead are able to reanimate and exist in a state that is neither living nor dead, but rather "undead". Burials of suspected revenants have been discovered throughout the ancient Greek world, pinned by millstones that were placed on either their heads or chests in order to trap the body in its grave.
> 
>  **Philtatos** \- most beloved.


	5. Troy- Part Four

Steve numbly pulled back the partition from the mouth of their hut, barely able to breathe under the crushing weight of his grief. As much as he didn’t want to face Briseis, he was glad of the reprieve. Seeing Bucky like that, knowing that he was responsible for his beloved’s pain, made Steve feel like he’d been buried alive. The desperation he saw burning in Bucky’s haunted grey eyes, the sorrow that tore through Bucky's voice as he’d begged for Steve to kill him… felt like rocks caving in on him from the grave he’d dug for himself. And, worst of all, Steve’s own cowardice as he denied Bucky’s pleading request. Guilt and shame filled up Steve’s nose and mouth like dirt, clogging up his lungs with guilt so thick he was choking on it with every forced inhale he took. 

He was a coward. A coward for prizing his damn pride and choosing not to fight. A coward for not granting Bucky his request to be at peace. Bucky had held Steve’s dagger to his own throat, pleading with Steve to set him free. Still, Steve could not bring himself to do it. He’d failed Bucky countless times in life, always putting his own selfish needs before that of the man he swore he loved; how foolish to expect that Steve would be capable of anything other than failing him in death as well. 

Steve had been born to take life, he’d been destined to bring cities and Kings to their knees; a true hero, bred for nothing more than violence and blood, and heroes never got their happy endings. Just as the heroes of old would testify, eternal glory came with a hefty price to pay; the bill comes due. Always. Steve had feared it would cost him his life, but he’d never—even in his worst nightmares—dreamt it would cost Bucky his as well. The price was too much. 

Steve stumbled out into the cool air of the night, hands trembling and eyes unfocused and bloodshot. He scanned across their camp, which was once supposed to be a temporary home, before they found themselves entrenched on the beach for a decade. Their tents, which had only ever meant to house them for a few months, had been reinforced over time, with irregular improvements, wooden walls and floors; now more like huts, they looked as unique as the men they belonged to. He saw the glow from his men’s fires, and smelt charred fish rising with the plumes of smoke that drifted towards the sky, reminding Steve both how hungry he was, and how little the thought of food appealed to him. It sparked a sense of pride in him though, their continued solidarity. The rest of the Grecian army would be feasting with Agamemnon, reveling in Hector’s death, but the Myrmidons stayed to mourn with Steve; even if he shunned them with his absence. 

Steve let his gaze drift to the sturdy wooden wall that had been built around the compound, and to the dining hall where no doubt someone was busy preparing a meal for him as well. A meal he had no intention of eating. He could see Bucky’s hand in everything. He remembered how Bucky had convinced him he needed a hall to entertain the guests he'd never particularly wanted to host. Even the decision to place their tent where they had was Bucky’s doing, set apart from the men, and back from the hall to give them more privacy; privacy they’d  _ definitely _ made use of. What had it all been for? 

With numb resignation, Steve let his gaze fall on Briseis who was kneeling before him in the sand. She’d brought water and cloth with her to bathe Bucky’s corpse; and her face was contorted with sorrow as if she'd been just as grief-stricken as Steve was over Bucky’s death. It should have been a comfort to him, perhaps, knowing that Bucky would be mourned by someone other than him, remembered and loved in death as he knew Bucky deserved, but it wasn’t.

“Why are you here?” Steve asked, voice cold and devoid of any empathy for her. Her presence was a constant reminder of why his beloved was among the undead, and though Steve knew in his heart that the blame did not lie with Briseis, he hated her for it all the same. In Steve’s mind, if it were not for her, at the root of his argument with Agamemnon and Steve's decision not to fight, Bucky would still be alive. This was her fault just as much as it was Agamemnon’s, and Steve was not about to let her forget that.

"Agamemnon has returned me to you," Briseis murmured, seemingly unbothered by Steve’s lack of empathy toward her. She’d always been closer to Bucky than she ever had been with Steve, and Steve knew she was only here for Bucky; not to fulfill her role as the war prize of the great Achilles. "He says you are allies once more, and wished to forget the unhappy past."

Steve scoffed, laughing without humor. It was an ugly sound, even to his own ears.

"You are free to go wherever you choose. I do not want you."

Briseis stood, then, fixing Steve with a hateful sneer of her own, unwilling to mask her distaste for him any longer.

"The men say you have not begun to prepare Patroclus’ body. Rumors you will not burn him at all.” She accused, glancing warily behind her to the place where Hector’s broken body still laid. “You refuse to grant him and Hector entrance to the afterlife. Why?"

The feel of rocks on Steve’s chest shifted and his lungs caved even more. "It is not your business, girl."

Her dark eyes were sharp with tears. "It is. You were not the only one who loved him." 

That tore through Steve’s heart like a knife. “I know of your love for him,” Steve growled, taking a menacing step forward in an attempt to scare her. But infuriatingly, Briseis stood her ground; not giving him so much as an inch of power over her. “I heard of your scheming plans to take him away from me, your desire to have his child—but he was  _ MINE _ , and I will not let you have him. I would not have your foul hands upon him!”

“And yet you leave him to lie in filth!” She viciously countered, her voice was bitter with the grief Steve felt in the very marrow of his bones.“You will condemn him to an afterlife of restlessness to soothe your own grief! You are selfish. You sent him to his death and now you claim you care for him? I do not believe you have ever cared for anyone but yourself. You did not deserve his love!” 

Steve wanted to throttle her. Part of him wanted to choke the life out of her right there in the sand, but he could never betray Bucky’s love for her like that. Instead, he buried his hands in his hair, tugging with frustration and rage, and self-loathing, until the golden strands were pulled from his scalp. 

“Get out.” He refused to let her see him cry, but his voice cracked with a strangled sob. “Leave!” 

“How could you have let him go out there?” Briseis pressed, with no regard for her own safety. “You knew he could not fight!” 

Steve screamed, shattering the serving bowl of water she’d brought with her. “Get out!” He grabbed a jagged shard of clay and pointed it at her in warning, ignoring the way it bit into his hand and spilled hot blood down his wrist. With tears stinging his eyes, his rage and desperation must have been obvious, but still, Briseis did not move. 

“Go on. Kill me. It will not bring him back. He was a far better man than you, and you sent him to his death!” 

The sound that came from Steve’s throat was hardly human, distorted and twisted with anguish and despair. He let the shard fall from his hand and pressed balled fists into his eyes, hating her for the words she spoke and the truth they carried. “I did not mean for him to die. I told him not to leave the chariot!” 

“It was you that made him go!” Briseis took a measured step towards him. “He fought to save you, and your darling reputation, because he could not bear to see you suffer! You have never deserved him. You care only for yourself!” 

Steve lowered his fists, keeping them clenched by his side and bared his teeth in a nasty snarl that would have made even the strongest man flinch away, but Briseis did not relent. 

“It should have been you, left to rot in the sand. Not him. Never him.” 

Briseis turned and left without another word, but he knew that she would return for Bucky if Steve did not burn him soon. She would never stop, never leave them alone until it was done. Steve finally allowed his legs to give out from under him, and he collapsed right there in the sand, weeping openly. Briseis was right. She was always right. Steve had never earned the right to call Bucky his own, and his refusal to grant Bucky passage to the underworld was proof of that. 

Steve knelt in the sand for a long while, feeling the cold seep into his knees as the warmth from the day faded away. Hector’s corpse lay strewn in the sand beside him. Someone had covered it with a shroud, but flies still buzzed with interest. It was their infuriating buzzing which eventually pushed Steve to his feet; their reminder of how Steve had disgraced Hector, and the punishment the gods had bestowed on him in return. He knew what he had to do. He wasn’t capable of setting Bucky free himself, but Steve could swallow his pride for a change; he could return Hector’s body to the Trojans and let them give him a burial to befit a prince. 

With a grunt, Steve pushed himself to his feet. He picked up the shards of the shattered bowl and flung them away from the door so he wouldn’t cut his feet in the morning, and then braced himself before re-entering their hut. A small part of Steve hoped that with his decision made, Bucky’s ghost would have vanished, but of course, he was still sitting on the bed, knees tucked under his chin as he’d always used to sit as a child. He looked scared and hurt, and even in the dim light of the room, Steve could tell that he’d been crying. 

Steve lit an oil lamp and placed it on a small chest they kept by the side of the bed. The glow illuminated their tent with a warm yellow light that brought some color back to Bucky’s cheeks, and made the red and puffy swell of his eyes impossible to miss. 

“Tomorrow I will return Hector’s body,” Steve promised. “If that does not set you free, then I will…” he swallowed and sighed. “Then I will do what I must.” 

Bucky just blinked dolefully at him. His big owl eyes looked hauntingly miserable. 

“I am sorry. This should have never been a price for you to pay. I should have never let you go in my stead.” 

“Briseis was wrong.” Bucky eventually spoke up. His voice sounded dry and cracked, and Steve’s heart ached to realize Bucky had overheard that entire conversation. “I know you always cared for me.” 

“I did, Bucchae. I do. More than anything.” 

“Tomorrow. If the gods are not appeased, do you promise to kill me properly?”

_ If I’m not already dead first. _ Steve didn’t voice that thought out loud. Instead, he crossed to the bed and reached for Bucky’s hands, clasping them tight in his own, so tight that the cut across his palm reopened. “I promise.”

Bucky pulled his hand free and turned Steve’s palm over, tutting as he did so. “For someone so vain about their legacy, you have surprisingly little care for your physical well-being.” He sighed. 

Steve flinched at the fall of Bucky's words, each one striking him like an arrow. Why had he ever cared so much about his reputation, when he'd already had something far more valuable in his hands? Why had he ever prized that above Bucky? 

“You stink - you know that,” Bucky added, sounding a little more like his old self and Steve felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth, despite the tears that still clung to his lashes. 

“So do you.” He gave Bucky a watery smile. 

“ _ I’m _ dead.” Bucky protested. “What happened to the water Briseis brought? I assume that is why she came.”

“Spilled,” Steve confessed.

“Well, go fetch some more and I’ll clean you up. As you so clearly have no intention of doing for me.” Maybe it was Steve’s promise, maybe it was just that Bucky’s shock had worn off, but his eyes shone with more of their usual vigor. 

Steve pushed himself to his feet and pressed a kiss to Bucky’s forehead before he went to fetch some water, adding, “Don’t go anywhere.” before he left.

“Where can I go?” Bucky huffed a soft laugh. 

No one questioned Steve’s request for water, in fact, the serving woman who fetched it looked relieved. She clearly thought it indicated Steve was progressing with the expected funeral rites. Among the Greeks, it was custom to hold the cremation before sunset on the day after death, but before that, the body had to be cleaned and prepared. She handed him a great ewer of warm water, scented with herbs, and handed over a cloth as well even though Steve hadn’t asked for it. He managed to mutter his thanks without sounding too gruff, and hurried back to the hut, finding Bucky sprawled on the bed this time in a much more laid back repose. 

Steve poured some water into a golden basin he'd been gifted at some point during the war, and wrung the cloth. “I should wash you first.” He offered. 

He started with Bucky’s hands, finger by finger, using the point of a dagger to clean the dirt from beneath Bucky’s nails, then his arms, his chest, wiping away the evidence of Bucky’s death with soft careful swipes of the cloth. Bucky lay lax and pliant throughout, looking up at Steve with an expression he’d never seen him wear before, one Steve wasn’t sure how to read. 

He had to fetch clean water four times before Bucky was clean, and when he finally reached Bucky’s face, with the last fresh ewer of water, Bucky reached up to draw Steve into a kiss. Maybe it should have felt strange, to kiss a ghost, but Steve honestly couldn’t tell any difference between how it had felt to kiss Bucky the night before. 

“You still smell,” Bucky said when he broke off, smirking a little.

“I know.” Steve pressed another quick kiss to Bucky’s lips before he straightened up. “I’ll wash in the sea.” Steve caressed his hand down Bucky’s cheek, letting the pad of this thumb linger in the dimple on Bucky’s chin for a moment. 

“Hurry back,” Bucky told him. 

Steve skirted around the edge of camp, avoiding his men, to slip down onto the beach. Gentle waves crashed against the shore and rushed up to meet him as he stripped from his bloody tunic and waded out into the water. Pale moonlight glinted off the rippling waves, shimmering out at sea, and stars peppered the heavens. Steve stopped with the water lapping around his thighs and prayed.

When he finally trooped back to their tent, Bucky was waiting for him beneath the covers, the lamp was dimmed and his smile shone through the glow. Steve didn’t hesitate to crawl into bed beside him, and gathered Bucky into his arms. 

“Tomorrow.” Bucky prompted, nuzzling close to Steve’s side like he was trying to steal his warmth. 

“Tomorrow,” Steve promised. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

Before dawn, when the sky was just starting to brighten with the promise of daybreak, Steve threw Hector’s body into the back of a chariot and lashed the horses into place himself. He felt Bucky watching from the doorway of their tent, and turned to see him bundled in the sheet from the bed, hugging it around his shoulders as he lingered into the shadow of the doorway. This time, Steve didn’t leave without a proper goodbye. He placated the horses with a calming hand to each of their noses, and crossed back through the soft sand that sunk under his heavy footfalls. 

There was still so much that Steve wanted to say and he was still so unsure of how to say any of it. So he settled on a simple “Philtatos,”  _ most beloved _ , and kissed him with finality. Bucky must have guessed that Steve had no plans to return, because his eyes went wide, and his hands reached from his blanket bundle to grasp at Steve’s arms.

“I have to go,” Steve said with a thick tongue. 

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Bucky whispered and Steve managed a soft, half-smile.

“How can I?” He brushed the pad of his thumb across Bucky’s cheekbone as he cradled Bucky’s jaw. “You took all the stupid with you.”

Bucky huffed a laugh, but a tear slipped down his cheek and caught on Steve’s thumb. Steve leaned to kiss it away and then stepped back. Bucky let him go and folded his arms around him, shivering as Steve stepped up into the chariot and urged the horses into a gentle trot towards the compound gates. 

Steve wasn’t used to driving the chariot himself, but he soon got used to the jerky, rolling movement, and by the time he was hurtling across the plains of Troy he thought he'd got the hang of it. His hair whipped, loose, behind his head, streaming like ribbons of gold, and the wind rattled through the ill-fitting cuirass he wore as a modicum of armor. Before him, the towering walls of Troy glowed pink in the rosy light of dawn, and Steve saw sunlight glinting off the armor of sentries who guarded the wall as they peered over to watch his approach. 

They must have announced him, because when Steve reined the chariot to a stop before Troy’s great gate, it began to slowly swing outwards. Steve dismounted and stepped forwards to show that he was unarmed, expecting to face a battalion of Trojan soldiers. Instead, he saw only Priam, looking stooped with age and grief; nothing like Steve expected from the King of Troy. 

“Mighty Achilles.” Priam greeted him and Steve flinched at both the name and the epithet. 

“I have returned your son’s body for burial,” Steve announced. He stepped aside so that Priam could approach the chariot to see where Hector was draped with a sheet. Steve hadn’t bothered to wash or clean the body, but he’d at least taken the effort to lie it neatly in the chariot. 

“I heard you were a noble man, Prince of Phthia,” Priam said, in Greek. His accent was strong but he spoke slowly and clearly. “I knew you would not let him wander lost.” Priam did not cry as Steve feared he would at the sight of his son's corpse. He simply waved for servants to cart the body back inside the city. Steve turned away, finding himself unable to watch the humble procession. 

“Thank you,” Priam said once they were left alone. His voice was quiet and his hands trembled as they reached towards Steve’s, to clasp his hands in gratitude. His hands were cool on Steve’s skin, wrinkled and spotted with age; such a contrast to the tanned, calloused, strength of Steve's. “It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.” Priam gave Steve’s hand a squeeze before he shuffled back through the gate. 

“No,” Steve whispered in agreement, watching Priam’s retreating form. He watched the gate swing closed with a thundering groan, and listened to the heavy clangs of bolts and barriers being slotted back into place before he could think about moving. If he’d hoped that returning Hector’s body would lift the weight of grief from his chest, Steve was sorely mistaken. He scuffed his feet in the dirt; the dirt he’d slaughtered Hector on the day before; the dirt Bucky had been struck down on. There was no trace now. The blood had seeped into the soil, where it would one day nurture plants once the battle ceased long enough for them to grow again. Before he climbed back into the chariot, Steve stopped to splay his palm across the dirt. It was already drinking up the heat from the sun and was hot under his touch. He could almost feel the life vibrating beneath the surface, just waiting for the chance to shoot forth. He mourned for it already; that there was only a world of death waiting for it above. 

Steve didn’t sense the bow being strung high up on the walls of Troy behind him. He didn’t sense the shake of their hands as the archer selected an arrow, or their fevered prayer as the arrow was notched. He  _ did _ sense the threat of danger, as the arrow flew straight and silent, in a curving, downward arc towards his back. He heard the faint hum of its approach a second before it struck and turned his head a little, willing it to find a true mark. He closed his eyes as the point pushed through his skin, parting thick muscle and sinking through the cage of his ribs towards his heart; where the arrowhead lodged with a sharp pain that felt only like relief. 


	6. Troy - Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quite a heavy chapter, dealing with death and grief - we know the fandom is grieving at the moment, which is why we delayed posting. Please take care of yourself and delay reading if you don't think you can handle it at the moment. There's fluff coming in the next chapter we promise 💙💙💙💙

Bucky stood by the mouth of their hut, blanket drawn up around his shoulders to try and stave off the predawn chill that carried along the breeze rolling off the sea. The camp was mostly quiet, the men still asleep, safe in their beds with no inkling at all as to what was about to happen. Bucky envied them in their ignorance, how their hearts were not tied to any single man among them. Their families were across the sea, safe from the war that had ravaged the beaches of Troy, and the men who’d fought and died here, for the past ten years.

Bucky’s soul felt just as scorched as the land under his bare feet, just as bloodied and barren as the sand, as restless as the sea. It had not rained in many months, and the air around him was unbearably dry and heavy, and each breath he took felt like ash filling up his lungs. He could see the darkened clouds rolling in from the north, feel the charge of electricity that built up in the atmosphere.

A great storm was coming, he knew, but it wasn’t the promise of lightning that had Bucky falling to his knees and praying for mercy. It was the clear intention he’d found lingering in Steve’s eyes, that unshakable determination in the set of his jaw and the clenching of his teeth. The fear that Steve didn’t plan to return.

Steve hadn’t been gone for very long, and it may have been the sullen goodbye they’d shared, or the way that his beloved had wept over him–even in fretful sleep, clinging desperately to Bucky like he’d fade away if he didn’t hold on tightly enough, slipping through his fingers like sand in the tide–that forced his feet to move, but before he could dwell on the reasons why, Bucky was well past the relative safety of the Grecian camp, cloaked and heading toward the gates of Troy with one thing, and one thing only in mind: _Steve._

He stuck to the shadows as best he could, using the natural cover the land provided to his advantage to slip by mostly unnoticed, but he knew there would be no place to hide once he’d reached the city walls. Archers and bystanders would be at every corner, watching the great Achilles with diligent eyes, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike a crushing blow to the Greek army.

It’s what Agamemnon would do, so who’s to say that Priam was any nobler a man than him, considering the dishonor Steve had shown his son in death.

Bucky wasn’t trusting of the Trojans, and feared they’d retaliate in the most vicious way they could to avenge their fallen Prince. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a Prince for a Prince. Bucky could hardly stand the thought of it.

He’d found an abandoned chariot a fair bit away from the wall and hid behind it, peeking out to find that the gates had been opened and their King was out in the open, speaking to Steve. Bucky couldn’t hear what was being said from that far off, but the words exchanged didn’t appear to be of a malicious nature. Steve was unarmed, Priam as well, and though there were archers with bows at the ready dotted along the top of the wall, there was no discernible uptick in hostility that would give cause for them to let loose their arrows upon his beloved.

The archers along the wall, for the most part, had lowered their bows; unwilling to take the coward’s path to victory when Steve showed no intent to strike their King down. But despite that, the apprehension that had lodged itself deep inside Bucky’s gullet since the night before, just wouldn’t leave him be. Something, although he couldn’t yet discern what, wasn’t right. Anxiety swirled in his gut like a turning tide and he watched everything with eagle eyes, waiting for the Trojans to show their true colors and double-cross.

Then, from the corner of his eye, Bucky saw the glint of armor flashing in the sun as an arrow was notched and the bow pulled taut. Steve didn't notice until it was too late. He'd stopped, paused to inspect something on the ground, when the arrow was released.

Bucky screamed, "NO!" with a force that nearly ruptured his vocal cords, but the wind caught his warning and tore it away. It was only as the arrow curved in its final descent, arching in a graceful dive towards him, like it had been guided by the hand of a god, that Steve noticed something was amiss. He turned his head just slightly to watch it approach; making no move to fling himself from its path.

Bucky watched with anguish as the arrow pierced through a leather fastening on Steve's poorly fitted armor, sinking through it like a hot knife through butter.

Steve crumpled to the ground as Bucky sprang out from his hiding spot. He waited, heart skipping beats and thundering wildly in his chest, his breath stuck somewhere in his throat, for Steve to move. To roll, crawl, or stagger to the chariot, but he didn't even shudder. Dead before he'd hit the ground.

To hell with staying hidden, Bucky threw caution to the wind and tore away from his hiding spot, sprinting across the dusty plains towards Steve. There was movement on the parapets, chaos and shouting, Briseis had taught Bucky enough Luwian to gather that the archer had not been authorized to fire. It gave him the cover he needed to bundle Steve's body onto the chariot and leap up to take the reins, spurring the horses away before the Trojans could come to investigate. Bucky wouldn't let them lay a hand on Steve.

He glanced over his shoulder as they rode, down to the limp and lifeless body of his beloved, and a wretched sob tore from his throat.

_Stéphanos. Philtatos._

He'd deserved so much better than a cowardly arrow in the back from an unseen foe.

Blood pooled on the chariot floor around him but thick and sluggish, without the urgency that would have told Bucky Steve's heart still beat in his chest. Steve was gone, the arrow must have pierced his heart and even the most skilled healer in the world would have been unable to bring him back. Worst of all, Steve had done what Bucky seemed incapable of doing, and passed over to the underworld, like spirits were meant to do. He would be waiting on the banks of the Styx to be burned with the coins that would pay the ferryman to sail him to Elysium.

Tears blurred Bucky's vision and he almost steered the horses straight into a ditch, but they were clever beasts and they corrected their course, thundering back towards the Grecian camp. Bucky let go of the reins, letting the horses pick their own path, and sunk to the chariot floor where he gathered Steve's body into his lap, careful of the arrow, and wept over him.

Steve's face was slack, eyes unfocused, staring unblinking up at the sun; bluer than the clearest summer sky. Bucky closed them with a reverent touch and pressed a kiss against each eyelid. He stroked Steve's long blonde hair back from his face, running his fingers through the tangles and remembering how they'd laid on the beach together countless times, with Steve's head in Bucky's lap, just so, expounding on all of his great plans for the future whilst Bucky gazed down in adoration and plaited pretty patterns into Steve's sun-kissed locks.

He was lucky, in a way, to have had that. To have shared so many moments with Steve, to have eked out their days together for ten years during the war; ten years they should never have had. Steve should have killed Hector during the first day of battle, and should have opened up the Trojan army for a Grecian charge that would have put a swift end to the war. They both knew Steve's death would follow like a shadow on Hector's heels. How foolish to think they could cheat fate.

"Be at peace, my love." Bucky held on tight to Steve's body until the last moment when the horses slowed to a walk in front of the gate to the Myrmidon's compound. Bucky didn't know what would happen if anyone else saw him, but he couldn't count on anyone to treat him with any form of kindness. He'd heard of the measures taken against Vrykolakas, buried with millstones placed on their chests to keep them in the grave; if Bucky was forced to linger as a spirit, he'd rather do so above ground. So he slipped down from the chariot, and hid in the shadows of the tall fence that encircled the compound, waiting for the alarm to be raised.

He didn't have to wait long. It was Automedon who noticed the horses and raised the shout, "Achilles is dead!"

Before long the camp descended into chaos. There was a Trojan arrow in Steve’s back and Hector's body was gone; it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. Battle plans were drawn up and the Greeks were flooding across the plains for revenge before Steve's body was even cold. Automedon led the charge for the Myrmidons, who thundered from camp with a vengeance, leaving only a quiet uneasiness in their wake.

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

Bucky waited until the last soldier had gone before he dared to approach the chariot. In their haste for vengeance, the men had forgotten to take Steve’s body for burial, leaving it exactly where Bucky had left him. A part of Bucky was furious about the blatant neglect Steve’s corpse received at the hands of his own men, for surely they knew the importance it carried for a warrior’s body to remain intact before burial, to maintain his honor and dignity in life as well as in death. However, as guilty as he felt for even thinking such things, Bucky was thankful they hadn’t taken Steve at all. He didn’t want their careless hands on his beloved, he wanted his own.

Carefully, Bucky cradled Steve’s body in his arms and moved to stand. It took quite an effort to lift him, as Steve was always the heavier of the two, more densely packed with muscle than Bucky’s lithe frame could realistically support on his own body, but he made due. As he carried Steve the short distance it took to get to the quiet of their hut, Bucky felt the first few drops of rain hit his cheek.

It appeared as though the Gods were satisfied with their latest sacrifice, finally releasing the rain they’ve held captive for the past few months, and the anger inside of Bucky only soured all the more for it. He should have known that it was Apollo’s hand that guided the archer’s arrow to the place it would do the most damage. Troy was Apollo’s city, after all.

Bucky cursed him regardless, uncaring of the consequences. His beloved was dead, and they’d be forever separated on the wrong side of eternity; Steve in paradise, and Bucky in a hell of his own making. What else did he have to lose? What more could be done to bring torment to his already tortured soul?

Once inside the hut, Bucky laid his beloved on the bed and sat down beside him, placing his head in his trembling hands. He just needed a moment, a few silent seconds to give himself over to his immense grief. He knew he didn’t have long to prepare Steve’s body, for the threat of his discovery increased with each passing minute. Someone would come looking for Steve soon, and when they found him, Bucky would have to be long gone, or he’d succumb to the fate a vrykolakas like him deserved.

So, he allowed himself to grieve for a moment, shifting until his body was pressed up against Steve’s side. Bucky buried his face in Steve’s neck, as he’d done so many times before in life, and wept.

“Oh, my love,” he lamented brokenly, clinging tightly to Steve's still-warm body. “You’ve gone where I cannot follow. I am forever lost, but you are found. That is all that matters.”

The dull roar of thunder outside their hut was the only answer his words had received, but perhaps that was enough for him. He would never again hear sweet things pour like honied wine from Steve’s lips, or taste the sticky nectar of figs that lingered with his kiss, but Bucky liked to believe that Steve heard his prayer, and answered in the only way he could.

It was foolish to think such things, he knew, but what else did he have to cling to? No small mercies would be given to a miserable wretch like him, that he did not offer to himself first. It was all he could do to keep from going mad in his grief.

Bucky held tight to Steve until he'd built up the courage to move, unable to delay a second longer. There was still some water left over from last night, when Steve had used gentle hands to bathe Bucky’s corpse. He slid from the bed reluctantly, padding across the room to grab the water and some cloth, as well as the soap Steve liked that was made from the oil of olives. As carefully as he would an infant, Bucky ran the soapy cloth across Steve’s skin, wiping away the blood and dirt he found there, paying particular attention to the fatal wound.

The arrow had been broken off at the fletching and Bucky gently pulled free from where it had been lodged between Steve’s ribs. It slipped free quite easily, with almost no effort required at all. Although, before Bucky intervened, it looked as if the arrow was trying to...push itself out. Of course, that was pure nonsense, and Bucky had quickly deduced that it must have been just a trick of the light or maybe even a hopeful delusion of grandeur at play, because things like that just didn't happen.

Steve was dead, and he wasn't coming back no matter how much Bucky prayed for it to happen. The sooner Bucky accepted that hard truth, the better he'd ultimately be.

He cleaned up the wound, and bound it to hide the sight of the ugly mark left in its place, and dressed Steve in the cleanest, finest garment he owned; a deep blue tunic embroidered with golden thread that had always reminded Bucky of sunlight bouncing off the deep ocean waves. Then he carefully washed and braided Steve’s hair, weaving golden rings and jeweled clasps into amongst his golden strands.

As he worked, the rain petered out, until only the drips falling from the roof remained. He kept an ear trained on the camp as it stirred back to life in the wake of the thundering rain; ready to flee at a moment’s notice. He had barely finished the final braid when he heard familiar voices encroaching upon the tent. Briseis and the serving women. They’d noticed Steve’s body was missing and were looking for him frantically. Bucky knew his time was up.

He tied off the last braid and pressed a lingering kiss to Steve’s lips, memorizing the shape and feel of them, even if there was no life or warmth left to kiss him back. Bucky took what he could, and stayed as long as he dared, until the voices came too close. He pulled a dagger from Steve’s weapon cache and cut through the cloth walls at the back of the hut, squeezing through the wooden reinforcements to slip quietly down to the beach.

He hid in the dunes, lying in the wet sand that was quickly dried by the sun as it wheeled in its steady path overhead; listening to the sounds of battle raging beyond his reach, and the closer chaos as the woman tried to figure out who had cleaned and dressed Steve.

“I saw footsteps leading to the beach!” One of the younger girls exclaimed; Bucky tensed in his hiding spot, ready to run to the boats if he needed to. “It was the sea-nymphs, I swear it was.”

“They say his mother was a goddess of the sea.” Another woman agreed.

Bucky couldn’t help but smile, listening to their certainty grow until three different women swore blind they’d seen the sea-nymphs walk up from the beach, trailing their sea-foam robes behind them, to prepare Steve’s body. That kind of talk had always amused Bucky. Steve’s mother had been as mortal as any other, but from an early age, Steve’s agility, his strength, and his godlike beauty had sparked rumor after rumor. Peleus had let the rumors grow; enjoying the advantages they brought. But in private, Steve had always known the truth, of his quiet and caring mother who had given her life so that Steve could be brought into the world.

Bucky’s mind traveled, as it inevitably did when there was talk of mothers, to the mother and sisters he’d left behind in Opus. He’d sometimes dreamt that if he survived the war, once his father had passed, that he might sneak home to see them one last time before he died. He let out a gruff laugh that carried no mirth. Of course, that was out of the question now.

Steve’s body was laid out on the towering bed of firewood built at the center of the Myrmidon’s camp, where it would wait for the men to return from war, for them to feast to as flames claimed Steve’s earthly body and his soul was freed to enter Elysium. The women retreated, and Bucky crept up from the beach to sit in the shadow of a hut and watch, and wait, and wonder what kind of existence was left for him now.

He kept his eyes trained on Steve, watching the sunlight bounce off his toned muscles that still looked so strong and graceful, even in death; watching the wind sift gently through his hair and tug lightly on his tunic, imitating the rise and fall of breathing.

No.

Bucky stared.

Not imitating. Steve’s chest _was_ rising and falling, with the slow, labored breaths of someone waking from a deep sleep.

Bucky staggered to his feet, using the wall of the hut to support himself as he watched Steve gasp a great lung full of air and _sit up_ on the funeral pyre.

 _“Stéphanos!”_ Bucky ran to him, and Steve turned, looking utterly confused. He almost tumbled from the pyre, but Bucky was there to catch him and help him stand on shaky legs. _“Stéphanos.”_

“Bucchae.” Steve reached for Bucky’s face, hands tangling in Bucky’s hair and almost threatening to squash Bucky’s skull like a grape—such was the desperation in his grip.

There was no question of Steve being dead. Bucky had seen the blank look of death staring out of Steve’s unseeing eyes, and the eyes that he stared into now were far from lifeless. They shone bright, like water sparkling in a shallow pool, full of confusion, but also full of life. If they weren’t dead, then...Bucky had no idea what was happening. But he knew they couldn’t linger.

“We have to leave.” He urged. “We have to get to the boats.”

Steve blinked. It took a moment for the words to sink through his bewilderment, but then he nodded.

“Yes.” His voice was hoarse, barely more than a croaked whisper. He swallowed and tried again. “Yes, the boats.”

Bucky dragged him half a step towards the beach when Steve stopped and resisted him. “Wait.” He pulled his arm free and staggered back in the soft sand, taking a few steps before he found his feet. “Wait!” He darted into the dining hut and returned after a moment with a torch, clearly lit from the perpetual fire they kept stoked inside. He threw the torch onto the fire to send it up in flames. “To cover our tracks.” He explained.

Bucky kissed him for his quick-thinking, and then grabbed hold of Steve’s arm with a fierce grip and dragged him down the beach to where they’d shored the boats. Wordlessly, they headed for a small fishing boat, one that might stand a chance of slipping away unnoticed. They didn’t speak as they worked in tandem to heave it into the shallows and guide it through the crashing waves. Steve leaped over the side in a smooth bound and offered his hand down to Bucky to haul him up.

Bucky settled into the center thwart and took up an oar, watching the fire catch in earnest and send plumes of smoke up into the sky. Steve stood, balancing as the boat rocked on the waves, staring back at the camp in a daze.

“Stéphanos.” Bucky reached for Steve’s hand and caught his attention.

Slowly, Steve tore his eyes from the beach and settled his gaze on Bucky. “Are we dead?”

“I thought so. Now, I am not sure.” Bucky answered honestly. “We can find answers later.” He added, tugging Steve down to settle on the bench beside him. “Now we need to get away.”

Steve nodded. He looked more uncertain and more lost than Bucky had ever seen him before, but he dutifully picked up an oar, and together they began to row out to sea.

Bucky had no idea where they were headed. He had no idea if they were alive, or dead. But they were together, and really, that’s the only thing that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments, they really mean the world to us, please let us know what you think! 💙


	7. Lemnos- Part One

Steve kept his eyes fixed on the smoke rising from the burning funeral pyre as he and Bucky rowed out to sea.  _ His _ funeral pyre. The one he’d been lying dead on not moments before. Clearly, he wasn’t dead any longer, but he  _ had _ been. Steve knew that with a pressing certainty. He’d felt the arrow pierce him, felt his heart stop and darkness claim him. He hadn’t just passed out or fallen asleep, there’d been a marked difference; like a cloud passing over the sun as opposed to the full blanket of night, or dipping your toes into a bath versus plunging headfirst into the ocean. He  _ had _ died. He had felt death’s cold embrace and bled out his life’s blood on the plains of Troy, and somehow, he'd walked away from it. 

Steve glanced at Bucky as they rowed in tandem, surging through the rolling waves that danced and sparkled under the midday sun. Bucky gave him a smile before returning to focus on each pull of the oar, counting a soft beat beneath his breath to keep them both in time. His muscles flexed as they rowed, glowing with the healthy nut-brown tan he’d always had in life. Vigor shone from his eyes and his curls bounced softly in the sea breeze that whipped around them. Bucky looked more alive than Steve had ever seen him before; the haunting look he’d worn in death seemed world’s away. But if they weren’t dead, then what on earth were they? 

He tried not to dwell on it, he tried to focus on where they were heading instead. Bucky was right, they could find answers later, their first priority was to get away. Revenants and Vrykolakas were not treated with kindness in any of the stories Steve had heard, and though there were tales of people who returned from the underworld, it was not without a heavy cost. Steve didn’t want to stick around in Troy to find out what that cost might be. 

Once they’d rowed far enough down the coast, Bucky decided they could raise the sail without the risk of being spotted. Steve didn’t disagree, his shoulders burned with the ache of rowing and he felt a bone-deep exhaustion weighing him down, the kind he associated with recovering from a serious injury. Fortunately, there was an easterly breeze which would push them west out into the Aegean Sea, back towards Greece, and hopefully to one of the small islands that littered the waters. When the sail caught, Steve let the oar slip from his hands and laid back across the thwarts to stare up at the bright blue sky. The clouds from earlier had burned out, or maybe it had rained, though, Steve felt sure he would have noticed if it had — he’d never been able to sleep through a rainstorm — leaving endless clear skies in their wake. 

He sensed Bucky sitting in the prow, staring at him, and once he’d caught his breath and could summon the strength to sit up, Steve propped his elbows on the thwart that ran beneath his shoulders and glanced up at Bucky. Neither of them said anything for a long while. The grief they’d both felt over the last day hung between them like rain collected in the roof of a tent, bulging ominously, ready to come crashing down on them at any moment. 

“You died,” Bucky whispered. A drip through the canvas. “You watched that arrow flying towards your back, and you did nothing.” 

Steve held Bucky’s gaze and bit back the retorts that leaped instantly to his tongue;  _ you didn’t stay in the chariot, you didn't stay away from Hector _ . For once in his life, Steve didn’t want to fight. 

“I’m sorry.” He managed in a small voice. His throat was dry, and when he glanced around for water, he realized just how desperate their escape had been. They had brought no provisions with them, no food, or water, nothing of the treasures Steve had amassed during ten years of war campaigns. He realized too, that he didn’t miss any of it. He’d had a taste of a world without Bucky and knew he’d trade all the treasures in the world for just one more moment with him. He certainly wasn’t going to throw these moments away on petty arguments. “I’m sorry.” He sat up and leaned forward to reach out for Bucky’s hands. “I only wanted to join you in death.” 

Bucky gave Steve’s hands a squeeze. “But we’re not dead.”

“It seems not.” 

“Don’t  _ ever _ ,” Bucky’s voice shook, and tears leaked from his eyes. “Do anything like that again.” The figurative canvas ripped and drenched them in a torrent of grief that they’d tried so hard to hold back. “I lost you.” Bucky whimpered, as tears fell down his cheek in earnest. 

Steve slipped forwards off the bench to kneel at Bucky’s feet in the narrow confines of the boat. He clutched their hands to his chest and shook his head. “I would never leave you.”

“You  _ did _ . I thought that you had entered Elysium without me. I thought you had gone where I could not follow.”

“Never,” Steve promised. He bowed his head to kiss Bucky’s knuckles. “The Gods must have known I would never let that stand, so they sent me back to you.” He tried to summon his usual smile, but he couldn’t quite recall the confidence or the arrogance he’d once worn so well, and it sat wrong across his lips. Steve let it drop and chose to kiss Bucky’s hands again instead. 

Bucky shook his head. “I was dead. I know. I felt…” He trailed off, trying to describe that eerie cold darkness Steve had felt consume him, but it was indescribable. 

“I know. So was I.”

“How…?  _ Why…? _ ”

“Maybe it will become clear to us in time,” Steve suggested, unable to offer more of an answer than that. “I am sorry I ever put you in harm’s way.” He added. Sorry didn’t feel like it was enough, but it was a start. “But I swear, on my life, that I will never do that again.”

“No. Not on your life, that’s much too precious.” Bucky countered. 

“Then on the sun,” Steve tried, this time with a more natural smile tugging at his lips. 

“Stéphanos,” Bucky warned. 

“Or the sea. Or death itself.” Steve laughed and Bucky shook his head with fond exasperation. “You are my world Bucchae, I will never let my pride come before you again.” 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

The sun wheeled across the sky and the wind stayed strong, soon they lost sight of the Turkish coast behind them, and as dusk fell they were left out under the sweeping dome of the cosmos. They trusted their destination to the will of the winds, speculating that to have cheated death meant they must have the favor of at least one of the gods, and when dawn broke, rosy and golden, they saw the rolling mountains of an island rising from the sea before them. 

“Do you recognize it?” Bucky asked, as their little vessel cut towards it through the gentle waves. 

“It must be Lemnos.” The size of mountains rising from the center, and the sprawl of the coast meant it wasn’t one of the smaller islands, and based on their trajectory and speed, Steve thought it was unlikely to be Imbros, or Skyros, or the Grecian mainland itself. 

The wind carried them slightly to the south, and they aided their direction by taking up the oars again and rowing along the coast until they found an unassuming cove with a small town nestled on the hilltop. It seemed like as good a place as any to rebuild their life. They washed up onto a sandy beach and dragged the boat up beyond the high tide mark, wrestling with it to haul it through the sand and hide it amongst the craggy rocks and green scrub that encircled the beach. 

Steve was sweating from the exertion and was tempted to head back to the sea to cool off, but Bucky tore up the beach in the other direction and Steve was dragged behind him like a shadow, powerless not to follow. Bucky scrambled through the sand until it gave way to coarse brittle grass that had almost withered under the heat of the sun. But there was no doubting it was grass and fresh, crumbly soil that hadn’t been forced to soak up blood for a decade. 

“Solid ground!” Bucky cried out in delight, and face planted in the grass, running his fingers through it with elation. “I have never been more glad to see a blade of grass.” He announced, and Steve had to smile. 

“There’s a whole mountain of grass up there.” Steve nodded to the north. 

Bucky rolled onto his side, peering up to see what Steve was pointing at. His tunic was already stained with dirt and grass, a few blades sticking out of his hair here and there. The soles of Bucky’s feet were dusted with sand that trailed clear up to his knees, brushing the fat of his bare thighs like fingertips, and even like this–especially like this–Steve couldn’t help but think that he was beautiful.

A sharp pain arrested his beating heart at the thought, and suddenly, Steve was gripped with the urge to fall to his knees and weep. Bucky had narrowly escaped Death’s icy embrace, as did he, and although he did not understand why or how they had been brought back to the realm of the living, Steve would be eternally grateful for it nonetheless. Perhaps this was a second chance gifted to them by the Gods, or maybe the Gods had nothing to do with it at all. Steve didn’t particularly care either way, so long as he had Bucky by his side. Kings could have their wars, and the Gods could have their blood-soaked pawns. All Steve ever wanted was Bucky.

He murmured a quiet “thank you,” to whoever was listening, and vowed to spend the rest of his existence righting the egregious wrong he’d committed against his beloved. Never again would his own pride be his downfall, or Bucky’s, for that matter. This time, Steve was going to do right by Bucky, and carving out a little space for them on this island seemed to be a great place for him to start.

He reached down and grabbed Bucky by the hand, gently tugging him up off the grass. They walked hand in hand up and over the hill, pausing once they’d spotted what appeared to be an abandoned shepherd’s hut on a grassy knoll over the other side. The windows were darkened, the inside of the house completely still. Even the pen around the back that must have once held the shepherd’s flock was empty, and from the looks of, had been for quite some time. Upon closer inspection, Steve noticed that a few of the clay tiles that made up the roof were either cracked or missing entirely, leaving a hole in the ceiling behind, but he didn’t think it was anything that couldn’t be mended. In fact, their years living on the beaches of Troy had taught them how to build and maintain their own homes quite nicely, so Steve posited that this shouldn't be much different.

“It looks a little derelict,” Bucky commented, pulling Steve up to the wooden door that hung crooked off its hinges. “I don’t think anyone is living here, do you?”

“No, I do not think so,” Steve answered with a smile, a thought abruptly popping into his head. They’d come up here in search of hospitality, but as he took note of the various overgrown crops and the fig tree that stood toward the back of the home, he couldn’t help but think that this was yet another gift given to them by the Gods. “But perhaps we could claim this home as our own.”

Bucky turned in the doorway at that, and the way his wide eyes sparkled in the low evening light, full of surprise, had Steve’s heart throbbing with a pleasant sort of ache, reminding him that this was  _ real– _ that he was  _ alive _ . His soul rejoiced silently for it, basking in the warmth of Bucky’s touch and the impish little grin that stretched his pink lips a moment later.

“Oh?” He murmured with a tilt of his head, giving Steve’s hand a squeeze. “Do you want to, my love?”

“Only if you do.” Steve lifted their joined hands up to his lips, kissing the pads of Bucky’s fingers reverently. “I would spend the rest of our days sleeping under the stars if you willed it so. There is nothing I would not give to you, Bucchae. I am eternally yours.”

Bucky swallowed thickly, his cheeks turning that delightful shade of pink that let Steve know just how much his words were affecting him. He nodded in lieu of a response, but Steve could see that he was struggling to find his words, as he often did when Steve lavished him with praises.

“And I am yours,” he said after a moment. “The day I stop loving you is the day the sun fails to shine, and the moon refuses to give its light. It will be this way forever, for I do not exist without you.”

Steve pulled him closer, then, ducking his head down to kiss the honey-sweet words from Bucky’s mouth. How could he not love this man with every fiber of his being? He should throw himself at Bucky’s feet and worship him in every way his beloved deserved, wringing himself dry just so Bucky’s heart and soul could overflow. 

They shared a few more chaste kisses and gentle touches before Steve reluctantly pulled back. They were both hungry and tired, and as much as Steve wanted to drag Bucky down and take him in the plush grass next to their newfound home, he knew that there were other, more urgent priorities that needed to be met first. 

They started with exploring the house, figuring out what could or could not be salvaged and what just needed a little patchwork. It was made of mudbrick like most homes were, but the cracks in the outer wall near the door–as well as that gaping hole in the roof–would have to be taken care of before Steve would feel confident in its security. Lemnos was known for its strong winds, and frankly, it was a miracle the house was still standing at all with how powerful they'd been rumored to be. 

They glanced around in the darkness, looking for an oil lamp and rejoicing when Bucky finally found one. There was still a bit of olive oil left in the reservoir, giving fuel to the small fire Steve then lit the wick with. The light coming off the lamp was dull, casting a faint glow around the interior of the home, but at least they could now see where they were stepping without tripping over anything.

The first thing Steve noticed, of course, was the bed shoved up against the wall. It was little more than just a straw-stuffed animal-hide mattress placed on the floor, but it would do for now. Steve could sell the gold Bucky had woven into his hair to buy a wooden frame for it, or maybe even a few more furs than what was left behind by the previous occupant, but that was a thought for a later time. They could plan better for the future once their bellies were full and they’d gotten some well-deserved sleep. Steve could tell by the growing shadows under Bucky’s eyes that he was fading fast, but honestly, Steve wasn’t going to last much longer either. 

With that thought in mind, Steve pressed a quick kiss to Bucky’s cheek and sat him down on the edge of the bed, telling him to wait there for a moment while he ran out to find some food. Bucky didn’t protest, as he usually did when Steve attempted to wait on him hand and foot. He was far too tired to put up much of a fight at the moment, which was understandable considering all they’d been through. He let Steve go, murmuring a sleepy “hurry back,” that had Steve’s heart fluttering against his ribs.

"For you?" Steve sighed. "Always."

Once outside, Steve briefly considered his options, aiming for something quick and simple, easy for him to find and prepare. He decided to fetch a few figs from the tree outback, as well as some apples from the grove across the way, but by the time he'd returned a few moments later, Bucky was curled up on the bed, fast asleep. 

Steve propped himself in the doorway for a moment and let himself watch Bucky sleeping peacefully, noting the soft rise and fall of his chest as his lungs expanded with each breath of air; a clear and welcome reminder that Bucky was alive as well. Outside the sun was setting with a fiery red glow that fell through the hole in the roof and the small empty windows, bathing the room with a golden, rosy light. It washed over Bucky's skin and caught in his curls, making the apples of his cheeks look lush and rosy, and giving him a healthy glow.

There was no trace of Bucky’s fight with Hector, even the small slash at his throat was completely gone. And, when Steve gingerly slipped a hand beneath his own tunic, prodding at where he'd felt the arrow pierce his skin, Steve found no evidence of that either. Not even the hard, shiny skin of a scab or a scar. However they'd survived, Steve was too relieved to question it.

He padded softly back towards the kitchen of the shepherd's hut and righted a rickety old table that listed with age and looked a little rotten, but it stood well enough when Steve placed the fruit on it. Unearthing some more debris which had gathered in the corner of the room, he found shards of broken clay pottery and a bowl that looked surprising intact. Steve brushed the cobwebs off and took it outside to the small, abandoned well he’d noticed down at the bottom of the slope. The rope looked a little worse for wear, but it held firm when Steve tested it, and the water he drew up from the well was clean and refreshing. He drank long and deep and splashed some on the back of his neck to wipe away the sweat before he filled the bowl and carried it carefully back up towards the house. The sky blazed red, full of pink and purple clouds, and a breeze rippled through the grass as Steve walked. He paused outside the front door and listened to the sound of rustling leaves and birds chirping softly to each other, which sounded so musical compared to the harsh cries of gulls which had been their only birdsong for a decade. Steve smiled and stepped carefully over the threshold, determined to get Bucky to eat and drink something before they could finally get some well-deserved sleep. 

Bucky wasn't exactly pleased about being coaxed awake, but he drank some water and sleepily munched on an apple, leaning heavily against Steve's shoulder as they sat together on the mattress. It was rare that Bucky let Steve wait on him and dote on him like that, rarer still that he needed it, and Steve cherished the moment even if it was wrapped in heartache and concerns for their future. 

When Bucky's hand went lax with sleep and the apple core rolled out of his grip, Steve decided he had done enough worrying for one day, and coaxed Bucky down onto the mattress, curling him in his arms to drift off into to a deep and peaceful sleep. 


	8. Lemnos - Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in rating! This chapter is pure fluff and spice, enjoy! 💙💙💙

The birdsong and sunlight that cut through the hole in the roof woke them at dawn. It shone directly on their faces and made Bucky squirm against Steve’s shoulder, trying to shield his eyes. He grumbled sleepily, rubbing his cheek against Steve’s tunic as sleep attempted to pull him back down. Steve let him drift off again, smiling to himself when Bucky mumbled something incoherent into his makeshift pillow. It seemed, even after all this time, that some things never changed.

On Pelion, and even as far back as their time in Phthia, Steve had never known Bucky to be one that rose with the sun. He was more content to lie in bed, dozing off and on until Steve would come back to bed with a late breakfast in hand and a warm smile on his face. They’d share bites of bread and fruit in between soft kisses, their touches light as they explored the contours of each other’s bodies. It was still so new to them, back then, that thing that had sprouted from the fertile soil of their friendship like an untamed field of wildflowers.

That cave had been the birthplace of many things between them, but perhaps its most beautiful creation, at least in Steve’s mind, was the simple dream they’d shared for a night.

Steve vividly recalled the moment when they’d taken their last breaths as ‘Achilles’ and ‘Patroclus’, when the lives they'd once had burst into flames like a weary phoenix; both so anxious to be reborn from the ashes into brand new creatures only the other would know by heart. They were so innocent, then, only sixteen, but they’d felt mightier than the gods of Mount Olympus, sculpting new identities for themselves as Zeus had once carved man out of clay.

But the dream of a new life, as most things were now, was born from fear. Fear of the unknown and of the foreseen future alike. Bucky hadn’t been ready to relinquish that little slice of Elysium he’d found with Steve, and though Steve felt the same way, war had been calling Steve to Troy, relentlessly tugging at his limbs to try and tear him away from his beloved. It was clear to Steve then, just as it’s always been, that Bucky wasn’t going to let Steve go without putting up one hell of a fight first.

“We could leave,” Bucky had said, when news of the coming war finally reached their ears. His head was pillowed on Steve’s chest after an evening full of lovemaking, fingers idly drawing odd shapes on the flat plains of his belly, making Steve shiver as the sweat dried on his heat-flushed skin. “Chiron would understand, I’m sure, if we disappeared. I do not think he would be angry with us, do you?”

"No, I do not think so either," Steve agreed, because if anyone would have understood their plight, it would have been Chiron. After all, he did not shame them when they’d laid their hearts bare, confessing their deep love and devotion for one another in the hope that they’d have his support. If anything, Chiron was happy for them, but warned them that others would not be so accepting of their bond once they’d reached a certain age.

It was common for boys their age to take physical comfort from one another, especially during adolescence when parts of them they didn’t even realize were there were just waking up, but remaining in that sort of relationship when they should have been shifting their focus to bedding the servant girls at court was seriously frowned upon, and flaunting it openly could even get them killed.

They had to be careful, once they’d left Pelion, and Chiron let them know–with all the care he could muster–that what they had between them must remain a secret in order for it, and for them, to stay safe.

Steve had paused for a moment, apprehensive at the thought of leaving everything and everyone behind. What kind of men would that make them, deserting the war before they'd even become a part of it? Nothing honorable, he was sure, but Steve had to ask himself if his reputation really mattered to him, and if it did, then would he risk what he had with Bucky to preserve it? Did his pride outweigh his love for the man he had resting in his arms?

The answer, of course, was a resounding no. It wasn’t necessarily the way the world would view them after they’d fled Pelion that gave Steve’s heart a restless kick, it was the uncertainty that would face them once they were well and truly alone in this world, with nothing and no one but each other to rely on. But for Bucky, and Steve had always known this to be true, he’d gladly spend the rest of their days dirt-poor and forgotten if that’s what it took for them to be happy together.

“So, we just take off in the dead of night? Where would we go?” Steve asked, his fingers softly carding through Bucky’s sweat-dampened curls, brushing them away from his forehead. “What would we do for coin, my love?”

Bucky hummed, and it was obvious to Steve that Bucky hadn’t really thought this through. Though, Steve found that he did not care. They would figure this out together, he was sure of it.

“I’m not sure. Perhaps we could settle somewhere in the countryside, or maybe on one of the islands,” Bucky said, and there was hope laced into his sweet voice when he spoke about their future. “I could learn to grow food for us, and tend to the animals we’d keep. You have a talent for carpentry and the arts-”

Bucky looked up when Steve stiffened minutely against him, unaware that Bucky had been watching him a lot more closely than Steve had first thought. Bucky smiled reassuringly, and Steve felt himself relax against the kiss Bucky pressed to the apple of his cheek.

“I’ve seen the figurines you make, Philtatos. I know people would love them, just as I do. There is more to you than what the surface shows, and you were born for more than blood and war. Your hands make the most beautiful things, my love, because your soul is pure and warm like sunlight. I wish that others could see what I have seen, then they would truly know you as I do.”

Words had failed Steve, no reply he could fathom seemed big enough for the love he felt for Bucky in that moment; Bucky, who saw beyond the skilled warrior and prince that everyone else wanted him to be; Bucky, who was the only one who had seen into Steve’s heart and loved what he had found. Instead of contending with words, Steve twisted to kiss Bucky, hoping to impart the love he felt for him that way instead. Bucky shifted beside him, arching his neck to drink in the kiss, and if the hands clawing at Steve’s sides with desperation to cling to him and press closer were any indication, Steve knew Bucky understood.

“We could build a house by a river.” Steve exhaled through kiss bruised lips. “And plant fig trees by the wall.” It was an idyllic fantasy and for that moment Steve was happy to indulge the possibility of spending their lives together lazing under the sun without the threat of war, without concerns for legacy or glory to try and tear them apart. “We’d have to take new names for ourselves,” he mused, if they wanted to stop people from seeking out the mighty Achilles to fight their wars.

Bucky hummed and began to trace circles around Steve’s hip bone. “What would yours be?” He tilted his head back to glance up at Steve with his big silvery eyes that shone in the twinkling light of the rose-quartz cave.

“Stéphanos,” Steve said quietly. The name came to him immediately, accompanied by memories of the small, frail, fair-haired boy who had once worn that name; the only other person besides Bucky whom Steve ever truly admired. “I knew a boy once, he was one of my father’s wards,” Steve explained. “Frail, sickly thing, but strong in a way only heroes are. He died before you came to Phthia. If I could be anyone else, I’d be him.”

“Then Stéphanos you’ll be to me.” Bucky decided. He arched to press a kiss to Steve’s lips to seal the name.

Steve could almost feel a weight being lifted from his shoulders as he shrugged off the burden that came from being Achilles; like shrugging off the heavy cloak, dyed with expensive purple from the murex shell his father had sent up to Pelion to mark Steve’s sixteenth birthday. The cape of a prince, of a future king. Steve had tried it on and twirled before Bucky whose eyes had glazed, delighted at the sight, but he had felt suffocated by it. When he threw it to the ground and raced Bucky to the river to splash in the shallows and collect figs from the branches that overhang the stream, he’d felt much more himself.

“What would you call me?” Bucky asked, still staring up at Steve.

He pondered for a long moment as he ran his hands through Bucky’s hair. No name seemed right, nothing felt unique or special enough for Steve’s beloved. He needed something that only Steve would call him. It came to him in a moment of divine inspiration; a musical grouping of syllables that seemed quite innocent at first.

“For you, I think Bucchae would suit you best,” He announced with a devilish grin.

“Bucchae,” Bucky repeated the name, swirling it around his tongue. “Why?”

“Because you’re a mouthful, darling.” Steve grinned.

The blush that sprang to Bucky’s cheeks was beautiful, glowing rosy red beneath the pink-hued walls of the cave. Bucchae could also mean rouged, depending on how you interpreted the meaning, but Steve infinitely preferred the first.

“A mouthful?!” Bucky sputtered. He sat up immediately and shoved Steve playfully in the chest. Steve lost no time in rolling over to straddle Bucky and trap him beneath his bulk.

“A mouthful,” Steve repeated to himself, he dove down to capture Bucky’s lips in a kiss, preventing him from arguing back. It didn’t stop Bucky from pushing all of his weight against Steve’s shoulders, trying to roll them again to gain the upper hand. But although Bucky had grown strong limbed and packed on lean muscle during the summer, he was still no match for Steve. Steve kept him pinned and started kissing his way down the column of Bucky’s neck, pressing kisses to the hollow of his throat, the dip between his pecs, the groove of his abdomen.

“You are not calling me a _mouthful_ ,” he insisted, but when Steve continued south and pressed a kiss right against the tip of Bucky’s cock that was already stirring again despite their recent lovemaking, all protests left Bucky’s mouth in a high-pitched keen of pleasure.

“But you are. The most delicious mouthful in the world.” Steve smirked through his long lashes and swallowed Bucky down whole. “ _Bucchae_.” Steve pulled up for air and lavished kisses down Bucky’s length, until Bucky was reduced to a whimpering, breathless mess, begging Steve for his release.

Despite Bucky’s initial protests, the name had stuck and Steve knew Bucky loved it now, more than he had ever loved Patroclus. But though the names held, the dream didn’t. Odysseus had found them, and the drumbeat calling Steve to war had proven too difficult to ignore. He’d traded in their plans of building a life with fig trees, mountain slopes, and herds of goats, for promises of eternal glory; what an utter fool he’d been.

Steve glanced down at Bucky, who was nestled peacefully against his chest in the cool morning light that clung like liquid gold to the smooth planes of his face. Twelve years stood between them and the dreams they’d shared in the cave, and Bucky wore the evidence of those years on his face, in the stubble that clung to his jaw, the softer curls that brushed against his shoulders, the faint laughter lines etched around the corners of his eyes, and the handsome sweeping lines of his cheekbones.

Bucky had weathered every hardship of those twelve years by Steve’s side, had kept the silly name Steve had bestowed upon him, had set aside his own hopes and dreams to give his life as a sacrifice for Steve’s legacy. Whatever reason there was for their survival, Steve knew he would dedicate whatever remained of his life to repaying Bucky the infinite favors he owed, in earning the love that Steve knew he never deserved.

Steve knew exactly where he could start, what he wanted to do to start their new life here, tucked away safe and sound from prying eyes and the call of war across the sea. Bucky was right, as he usually was. Steve did have a proclivity for the arts, as well as a hidden talent with woodworking. He’d fix up this ramshackle house and make it theirs, fill up the stables with goats and sheep for them to tend, and even make some coin by putting his odd talent to good use. There was so much Steve wanted to do with this precious gift of freedom they’d been given, but more than anything, Steve wanted to make Bucky happy again.

He knew if he ever said anything to the contrary that Bucky would just deny it, claiming that all he ever needed was Steve to be happy, but Steve had noticed–perhaps a bit too late–that the light had long since left Bucky’s eyes. Steve could make him happy here, give him the life they’d dreamt up on Pelion. Maybe this really was their second chance, a unique opportunity to do things right? Steve liked to think so, especially after all they’d been through.

So, with a renewed sense of purpose and a battle plan to go along with it, Steve carefully extracted himself from Bucky’s arms and slid out of bed; placing a rolled-up blanket under Bucky’s cheek to act as a pillow in his stead. He crept around the hut as quietly as he could manage, gathering up what little olive oil was left in the amphorae, as well as some water from the well to clean them up afterward before he slid back into bed; a warm smile on his face and a few figs cradled in his hand.

Steve pressed his lips to Bucky’s forehead, rousing him gently with the light sensation of fingertips sliding up the soft skin of Bucky’s round thighs, just as he had so many times before. Bucky groaned sleepily, fixing Steve with a dopey grin as his pretty eyes slowly fluttered open. It was strangely reminiscent of their time spent in Chiron’s cave, and Steve knew right then and there that he wanted to give a piece of that back to his beloved, allowing them the chance to bask in the happy past as they once did so long ago.

“Morning,” Bucky murmured, his sweet voice still a bit rough from disuse.

“Good morning," Steve echoed just as softly, unwilling to disturb the quiet morning that had settled around them just yet. It had been far too long since they'd had such gentle serenity draped over them like a warm blanket, shielding them from the icy horrors of this world. Steve couldn’t stomach the thought of depriving them of something they've both been longing for since they'd left Pelion. He'd do anything he could to preserve the tenderness of this moment, because after years of nothing but blood and death, Bucky deserved to be wrapped up in something soft and gentle.

“How did you sleep, Philtatos?” Steve then asked, gently brushing the hair from Bucky’s forehead. He didn’t miss the way Bucky shivered at his touch, his body already on the same page as Steve’s. They often were when it came to sex. “Did you have pleasant dreams?”

Bucky hummed when his curious eyes spotted the amphorae of oil resting by the side of the bed, and the smile that graced his lips felt like warm sunshine hitting Steve’s skin; so bright and radiant that Steve couldn’t resist the urge to bask in it.

“I dreamt of you,” Bucky whispered, and it reminded Steve of their youth, when they used to hide underneath the blankets, murmuring secrets they already knew to one another. It was the response Bucky had always given when Steve asked him about his dreams, and even though Steve had heard that line more times than he could count over the long years they’d been together, it still made his heart flutter like mad to hear such sweet sentiment fall from his beloved’s lips.

“Oh?” Steve indulged, playing along. “And what was I doing in this dream of yours?”

Bucky blushed, averting his eyes. “You were kissing me.”

“Was I?” Steve grinned, leaning down to rub the tip of his nose against Bucky’s. Bucky nodded, still a bit bashful despite all the many things they’d done to one another. It still caught Steve off guard sometimes, seeing that tiny shred of innocence that lingered within Bucky’s spirit. Steve had once insulted that purity, calling Bucky naive when all he wanted to do was help save their men from an unnecessary death, all while Steve sat back and refused to lift a finger. His choice of words that day left a sour taste in his mouth that he knew he’d never truly be rid of, and even though they said their apologies and promised to never wound each other like that again, Steve still felt guilty.

"You mean like this?" Steve murmured, bending his head down to press his lips against Bucky’s, savoring the sweet taste he found there. It was barely something one would call a kiss, but Steve and Bucky had played that game before, and they both knew exactly where it would lead them in the end. “Is that how I was kissing you, my love?”

“No,” Bucky breathed with a shy shake of his head. “Not like that.”

“No?” Steve cocked his head to the side, acting as if he didn’t understand. Bucky laughed breathlessly at how silly it made him look, and the sound was so much sweeter than any music Steve had ever heard. “More then?’

“More,” Bucky practically moaned, and Steve’s eyes darkened instantly, his cock giving an eager twitch against the curve of Bucky’s hip. Bucky would often jest that Steve was as easy for it as they come, and that it wouldn’t take much more than a stiff breeze to push him past the point of no return, but the truth of it was that it wasn’t the mind-blowing sex that Steve was so easy for, it was Bucky. It had always been Bucky.

“Give me more, Philtatos. Please?”

Bucky’s lips turned down in a pretty little pout for emphasis, and Steve watched helplessly as his willpower to draw the game out a little more immediately went up in flames.

“It’s been too long since I felt you,” Bucky continued, batting his eyelashes at Steve. In reality, it had only been a day or two since they’d last made love to each other, but for them, a short gap like that would feel like an eternity. “Are you going to deny me what I want—what I need?”

“Of course not. I would never deny you what’s always been yours.” Steve said. His body mirrored the restlessness Bucky felt in his core, a desperate need for closeness, a hunger that only intimacy could sate. When Steve felt like this, he would have normally rubbed that oil on his fingers and worked himself open, long before Bucky had woken up to do it for him; ready for Bucky to take him when he woke. But Steve knew Bucky needed this just as much, if not more than he did at the moment, and Steve was willing to give himself wholly over to Bucky’s happiness. He could take his turn later.

They’d never conformed to the Greek stigma surrounding sex, never believed there was anything inherently submissive or passive about receiving pleasure, certainly nothing worthy of ridicule. They took pleasure from each other in every way possible, exploring each other’s bodies, familiarising themselves with every inch, eliciting ecstasy in every way they could. There were expectations, of course, for the Mighty Achilles, Prince of Phthia; in public, no one had seen them equals. But behind closed doors, it was a completely different story. Bucky and Steve were equal in every way, and that’s all that really mattered to them.

“Then if it’s mine, why do you still delay?” Bucky pushed, impatient as always.

“You haven’t eaten yet, my darling,” Steve said in return, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Wouldn’t want you to waste away, now would we?” He gave a teasing smile and Bucky growled as he narrowed his eyes at Steve. But still, he petulantly snatched a fig out of Steve’s palm and bit into it, moaning lewdly as the syrup inside filled his mouth. Steve licked his lips, watching Bucky’s eyes flutter as his lover put on a bit of a show, tempting him the best way he knew how. Bucky was playing dirty, and Steve knew it, but _Gods_ if it didn’t work on him every single time.

Steve swooped down to capture his lips, then, groaning as he licked at a drop of sticky syrup still clinging to the seam of Bucky’s mouth. Bucky’s lips parted in a surprised gasp, and Steve’s tongue instantly dipped behind Bucky’s teeth, chasing the remnants of sweet fig that clung to his mouth like honey.

The half-eaten fig rolled from Bucky’s hand to the floor, joining the few that Steve had given up to tangle his fingers into Bucky’s hair. It was a heady message Bucky was sending, wordlessly choosing to abandon his breakfast in favor of becoming Steve’s, and _oh_ , did Steve intend to make a meal out of him. That is, if Bucky would let him.

Steve had initially planned on drawing this out, making their passionate coupling an all-day event like they had done on several occasions in the past. After all, they _were_ christening the bed in their newly acquired home, and in addition to that, their new lives here on Lemnos as well. But it seemed that Bucky had other plans for them, steering the kiss they shared from heated to downright filthy with just a few swipes of his tongue.

It sent a thrill racing down Steve’s spine, one that he mirrored with a tight roll of his hips, pressing his hardening cock into the plush flesh of Bucky’s thigh; a prelude of what was to come.

“Stéphanos, hurry. _Please!”_ Bucky whined, and the need in his voice was a palpable thing, hot like a brand on Steve’s skin. Bucky’s legs parted in a silent offering, and Steve shifted his weight, slotting himself into the cradle of Bucky’s hips as they kissed and touched. In a flash of white and blue, their tunics were shed and tossed to the far end of the hut, leaving every mouthwatering inch of themselves bare to the other.

Steve didn’t hesitate to put lips and tongue to Bucky’s unmarred flesh, reverently kissing around the place on Bucky’s belly where Hector’s spear had impaled him just two days prior. How not even a faint scar remained from such a wound was truly a miracle, but then again, Steve himself was missing a few well-earned scars as well. Some things just couldn’t be explained, but Steve was grateful that the evidence of their demise was not etched into their skin, serving as an eternal reminder of what they could have lost.

Bucky’s hands fisted into Steve’s long hair, guiding him back up the length of his body and into a scorching kiss with a few not-too-gentle tugs at his scalp. And as their lips met once again, Steve felt his eyes roll back at the sharp bite of pain that zipped up his spine, blissfully reminding him that he was _alive_ —that all of this was _real_ and not some vivid fever dream he’d conjured up in his final moments of life, kneeling in the blood-soaked sand at the gates of Troy.

Bucky was here and so alive, writhing underneath him in desperate need. His cock was hot and flushed red with arousal where it pressed against Steve’s—and there, glimmering in the murky pools of his eyes, Steve saw the light that had long since burned out, reflecting strong and bright from within, just as it had before the war. Steve had never seen a more breathtaking picture than the one Bucky painted for him now, lying on his back with his dark hair fanned across the pillow. Bucky was the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen, and Steve longed to see him light up like a beacon, engulfed in pleasure so hot it burned him down to ash.

“Like this, my love?” Steve breathlessly asked once he could muster up the strength to tear his mouth away from Bucky’s. When Bucky nodded his assent, Steve sat back on his heels and reached for the amphorae of oil, pouring a generous amount into his palm to better aid the joining of their flesh.

Gently, Steve nudged Bucky’s knees apart a little more, spreading him as wide as he could go. Bucky didn’t jump as he’d used to when the slick pressure of Steve’s fingers made itself known, the calloused pads slowly circling against his entrance before two thick fingers dipped inside.

 _“Stéphanos,”_ Bucky softly moaned at the burn of the stretch, arching off the bed. His body tensed against the intrusion for a moment, and Steve patiently waited until he felt Bucky relax against him, giving him a quiet moment to indulge in the sensation.

Bucky never really needed much foreplay to ready him for Steve’s cock, and it was much the same for Steve when their roles were reversed. They knew each other intimately, their bodies fitting together like pieces of broken pottery, their souls cupped together like hands.

Steve worked him open as slowly as Bucky would let him, wanting to savor all the little sounds Bucky made when Steve’s fingers brushed against the sensitive spot inside of him, but Bucky had taken to begging almost as soon as Steve had started pumping his fingers, pleading for Steve’s cock like he’d die if he didn’t get it soon.

The thought left an unpleasant taste in Steve’s mouth, but he pushed it aside, taking the remaining oil in his hand to coat his aching cock. They were both keyed up from the stress of the past few days, left rock hard and wanting from just those few tongue-filled kisses they’d shared. But it wasn’t just sex that Bucky was craving from Steve. Bucky needed to _feel_ something, to know without a doubt the way that Steve did now that he was alive and well, and Steve wasn’t going to deny him that peace a second longer.

Steve eased himself back down, draping his larger frame over Bucky’s protectively as Bucky pulled him into a tight embrace; wrapping both arms and legs around Steve to keep him right where Bucky wanted him.

The position was familiar, one of their favorites for a myriad of reasons, but it was the intimacy of it–the connection they felt when their eyes locked, watching every delectable expression flash across the other’s face when they joined themselves together in untamed ecstasy. It was kissing the sounds from Bucky’s mouth when the rising wave of his pleasure crested with Steve’s, feeling his body shake and shiver, hearing their hearts pound in unison. Nothing on earth could ever compare to it.

“Ready?” Steve murmured. He reached between their bodies to take his cock in hand, pressing the head against Bucky’s slick entrance.

“For you? Always.”

Bucky captured Steve’s lips once again, keeping the kiss sweet and soft as Steve slowly pressed his hips forward, impaling Bucky on his cock one agonizingly sweet inch at a time. Steve laid his forehead against Bucky’s the moment he bottomed out, and Bucky groaned woundedly at the stinging stretch—the mind-numbing fullness he often swore he could feel in his gut.

Bucky’s heels dug into the dimples at the top of Steve’s ass, pressing him in deeper, urging Steve to _move._

He started off slow at first, just a gentle rocking of his hips that would get Bucky keening in a heartbeat, but gradually the pace quickened, and those gorgeous sounds of pleasure Bucky often had to muffle were then unveiled in all their unhindered glory. The room filled with the music of their passionate lovemaking, and it was without a doubt the most beautiful thing Steve had ever heard.

Steve angled his hips just the way Bucky liked it, slowing his sharp thrusts to a filthy grind that had Bucky shivering in his arms. He kept going, murmuring encouragements against Bucky’s lips in between biting kisses, telling him how precious he was, how beautiful he was.

Bucky came with a sob a moment later, untouched, with only Steve’s cock inside of him to give him the pleasure he needed. Bucky shook through the aftershocks, kissing every inch of Steve’s face he could reach until his beloved tipped over the edge as well, coming hard with a guttural groan Bucky would certainly be able to feel in his bones.

They lay there afterward, bodies still blissfully fused together, their sweat-slicked skin now bathed in the golden glow of the rising sun. They weren’t yet ready to leave the sanctity of this moment behind, so they clung hard to each other, and they wept, and they allowed themselves to bask in the knowledge that they were still there, still together, and that nothing—not even death itself—could ever tear them apart.

When they were ready to rise and greet the morning, there would be no demands on their time, no one telling them how they could or couldn’t live. They would finally be free to live out their days in bliss.


	9. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for sticking with this story♡♡

It was Natasha and Rhodey who rallied them. Steve didn’t want to move, he wanted to stay curled over the small pile of dust, the ashy remains that were all that was left of his beloved—but he wasn’t the only person who had lost someone. As Steve pushed himself to help with the clean-up effort, data began to flood in from all over the world. The death count—or rather the ‘missing’ count, as Rhodey optimistically termed it—was astronomical, quickly reaching 3.2 billion. Steve might have wanted to give in to his grief but he couldn’t, not when Thanos was still out there—in the possession of six infinity stones and capable of untold further damage. 

Thanos. The word had haunted Steve for many lifetimes, and each time he thought they’d understood the meaning, he and Bucky had been proved drastically wrong. Now Bucky was dead, Sam too, and trillions more across the universe. They’d all paid the price this time because Steve had failed to step up and fight sooner. He’d been too late, again, in a cruel twist of irony. Or perhaps it was fate; was Steve always fated to fail Bucky at the crucial moments and let him pay the price for Steve’s mistakes?

“This is a nightmare.” He muttered under his breath. 

“I’ve had better nightmares.” Natasha commented, looking far more troubled than Steve had ever seen her before. She normally kept her emotions well guarded under a lock and key. For her to look so visibly concerned was a testament to how dire things really were. 

From across the room, Thor gave an angry growl. “This is my fault.” 

“No, Thor.” Steve glanced up from the holographic screens cycling through the ‘missing’ count country by country, forcing himself to look away from the horror and over to his old friend. Thor stood by the floor to ceiling windows of the compound, looking out over the flattened, blackened grounds where the battle had raged the day before. 

“I should have gone for the head.” He whispered under his breath, banging a balled-up fist against the glass which crackled with electricity and sent the lights in the compound flickering for a moment. 

“You did more than any of us, Thor. It wasn’t your fault.” Steve tried to reassure him, but his words glanced off and Thor shook his head. 

“I should have stopped him. Loki, Heimdall, they died for  _ nothing _ .”

Steve crossed the room in three quick strides to curl an arm around Thor’s broad shoulders and strong-arm him into a hug. “I’m sorry.” He whispered as Thor curled in against Steve, because if the blame laid anywhere, it was with Steve. “We’ll find him. We’ll find Thanos. And we’ll make him pay. I promise.” It seemed the one thing Steve was capable of was vengeance. 

Thor gave a cracked sob and clung to Steve tightly. Steve held him through it, envious of the way Thor let himself break down. He’d only managed to push his numbing grief back so far; if he gave in, even for a moment, Steve knew it would overwhelm him. 

“It’s a nice plan, Steve, but how the hell are we going to do that?” Natasha asked cynically from across the room. 

“She’s right. We have no idea where he went. And he still has the stones. We couldn’t stop him this time, what makes you think —” Thor pulled back from Steve, frowning with a sadness that no one should ever have to bear. 

“Because we have no choice,” Steve said more forcefully than he’d intended. But what else was there for them to do? Anger was the only thing fueling Steve, anger and the desire for revenge. Even if there hadn’t been the prophecy to contend with, Steve knew he would have hunted Thanos down to the ends of the universe. He’d make the titan pay, even if it was the last thing he did. “And because if we don’t - if  _ I  _ don’t, no one will.”

Steve turned away from Natasha and Thor who were giving him looks of confusion. 

“Hey. So that thing just stopped doing whatever the hell it was doing.” Rhodey announced, interrupting them before Steve had to begin explaining the prophecy; saving Steve from revealing more of himself than he’d care to admit. 

The pager had been found in the road, abandoned by the trunk of Nick Fury’s car, presumably from when he— and 3.2 billion others on earth—disintegrated into dust. In the clean-up effort, it had found its way to the Avengers Compound, still spitting out a signal that none of them could decipher. But, as Natasha predicted, if Fury had gone to the effort of using his last few moments to send out the signal, it must have been important. Banner had hooked it up to the compound’s devices and was trying to figure out a way to hack into it, so far he’d had no luck. 

“What have we got?” Natasha asked, taking the lead as Steve and Thor trailed in behind her. 

“Whatever signal it was sending finally crapped out.” Bruce explained.

Steve turned to him, concerned. “I thought we bypassed the battery?”

“We did,” Rhodey assured him. “It's still plugged in, it just... it just stopped.” He gestured vaguely, indicating he was just as clueless about it as Steve. 

“Reboot and send the signal again.” Steve ordered. 

“We don't even know what this is.” Banner protested. 

“Fury did,” Natasha said, like that’s all that mattered. And really, when you were clutching at straws, this was the best lead, and the best straw they had to grasp on to. “Just do it, please. You tell me the second you get a signal. I want to know who's on the other end of that thing.” 

Steve was so focused on the device, and concentrating on not letting his grief and anger simmer over, that he didn’t notice anyone approaching from behind them. It wasn’t until Natasha gasped beside him, that Steve realized they weren’t alone. He spun on the spot, instinctively lowering his center of gravity and gearing for a fight, but the woman he found himself face to face with didn’t look hostile; she looked just as confused and concerned as they all felt. 

“Where's Fury?”


	10. Lemnos–Part Three

_ (Thanos, Lemnos, circa 50AD) _

Steve had, in fact, made good on his promise to Bucky. He’d kept his vow to turn the little island of Lemnos–as well as the spot near the beach they’d come to learn was named Thanos–into a private oasis reserved for just the two of them. And for a while, it was good. Life was simple, filled with the quiet domesticity of sharing a home and working the land they’d owned, tending to the animals, and selling what goods they could make for a fair bit of coin. Steve had patched up the little shepherd’s hut within the first week of their arrival, but of course, every few months, boredom would get the better of him and Bucky would watch as Steve tore it all down just to start over again; building them a grander home each time he did.

By the time their first year on the island came and went, Steve had dutifully filled the pens out back with sheep and goats, and Bucky had discovered a talent he’d never known he possessed in gardening, growing them a plethora of fruits and vegetables that made up the majority of the meals he prepared for them each day.

News of Troy’s downfall came shortly after they’d arrived, the bright, fiery beacons of Greece’s victory lit up from Troy’s shores all the way to the Greek mainland. Steve felt a complicated twist of emotions in his core when he’d learned about the sack of Troy, supposedly led by a son he’d never sired–born by a wife he hadn’t met, but he couldn’t help the self-satisfied smile that stretched his lips when word of Agamemnon’s murder reached his ears a few months afterward. Killed in a bathtub by Clytemnestra herself, it seemed, his kingdom promptly usurped by her lover, Aegisthus. Steve had to laugh. It’s what the bastard deserved after he’d slain his own daughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrifice to the Gods Steve no longer believed in. 

It was safe to say that Steve still held nothing but contempt for that man, even after he’d met his well-deserved end. In the back of his mind, Steve had wished it were his blade that slipped between Agamemnon’s ribs, and if he could—though Bucky would surely contest— he’d drag that bastard back out from the Underworld just to kill him all over again. After all, if it weren’t for Agamemnon, Steve honestly believed that Bucky would not have died. At least not the  _ first _ time.

As the years passed them by without incident, Steve began to hope that they’d left their tragedies behind, though he retained a lingering suspicion that sooner rather than later, tragedy would once again befall them; which it did, rather spectacularly, as it turned out. 

The morning began just the same as any other they’d shared, with Bucky’s arms wrapped tightly around Steve’s waist, fingers and lips curiously wandering across the tanned skin that Bucky could map out by memory. Bucky had wrung two orgasms out of Steve’s quivering body before he finally arose from their bed to fetch them a late breakfast. Steve, still floating on the cloud of ecstasy Bucky had put him on, hadn’t realized anything was amiss until he’d heard Bucky’s frantic cursing. 

By the time Steve had thrown on some clothing, curiously wandering out back to the pens where they’d kept the livestock, Bucky had already taken off toward the cliffside, hot on the trail of a lamb that had somehow escaped its hold. Steve didn’t hesitate to go after Bucky, knowing how unfathomably deep the well of his compassion for animals truly was. The lamb, in its quest to escape, had backed itself onto a stretch of rock that was beginning to crumble away from the cliffside, and Steve knew the second Bucky stepped foot onto that plateau to save it, that the rock would inevitably give way.

“Bucchae!” Steve had shouted, desperation thick in his voice as he quickened his feet. “Wait– _ stop!” _

To Steve’s everlasting horror, Bucky hadn’t heard him in time. He’d reached the wayward lamb mere seconds before Steve could get to him, and just as Steve predicted, the instant Bucky had his arms around the squirming creature, the rock swiftly gave out from under Bucky’s feet, sending him into a steep freefall, only to land on the jagged earth below with a sickening  _ thud _ .

Steve had watched, helplessly, as his beloved was  _ once again  _ ripped from his arms. Snuffed out like a flame in the wind in a matter of seconds.  _ Not again _ , Steve thought as he descended the cliffside with manic desperation to get to Bucky, who lay unmoving on the ground; the lamb, seemingly unharmed, still clutched in his grasp.  _ Please, not now!  _ Not when they were finally enjoying their peace together. 

Steve picked his way down the cliffside in a panic and had knelt among the rocks beside Bucky’s lifeless body, unconcerned in the slightest with how they’d sliced and tore at the thin flesh of his legs as he pulled Bucky into his lap. The lamb, predictably, had taken the opportunity to spring itself free from Bucky’s loosened grasp, but surprisingly, it didn’t go far, and apparently, neither did Bucky. While Steve cradled his beloved’s broken figure, thinking for the longest moment of his existence that Bucky had once again left him alone in the realm of the living, the body in his arms shifted minutely, and a pained groan broke free as the bones in Bucky’s neck and back–and even his left arm that had been shattered from the impact of the fall–knit themselves back together. 

Bucky’s eyes flew open from the shock of it, and when Steve’s arms tightened around him, Bucky looked up at his beloved’s weeping form, reflecting just as much confusion and bewilderment as Steve felt in the watery greys of his eyes. Bucky had come back from the dead, just as he had before, and though neither really understood what was happening or why it seemed they  _ could not die _ , they were still grateful for what they’d been given nonetheless.

Of course, they’d tried to make sense of it, and Bucky, who still prayed to the Gods when he thought Steve couldn’t hear him, suggested that perhaps they were meant to do something significant with this newfound gift of immortality the Gods had graced them with. 

“You remember what the Priestess said, do you not?” Bucky had asked some time later, after Steve had drunk water from a poisoned well on one of their infrequent trips to Kontias for supplies. Of course Steve remembered. He’d also recalled taking his last breath mere seconds after swallowing that first mouthful, and predictably, the Underworld spat him right back out, shoving his tattered soul back into the ill-fitting armor of his still-warm skin.

“I do,” Steve said, then, already knowing exactly where Bucky was going with this line of thought. “Though, I must confess, I do not understand what it means.”

It was just one word, uttered in hushed urgency in Steve’s ear. “ _ Thanos _ ,” she’d said, keeping a tight hold on Steve’s arm to stop him from turning away and storming from the cave as Bucky had done moments before; angered by the prophecy they’d come here to seek out. Thanos meant nothing to them, then, and it meant nothing to Steve now, even though Bucky seemed to believe otherwise. 

“The Gods brought us to the beaches of Thanos, Philtatos, I do not think that was for nothing.” Bucky urgently pushed, desperately trying to make Steve see exactly what he did now. “We are meant to use this gift for good, help these people when they need it. We are but cowards if we turn a blind eye to their suffering.”

Steve had to agree, even if it was only to the fact that their immortality had an unknown purpose behind it. 

Years turned to decades, decades to centuries, and just as it had touched every speck of land it could get its hands on, war had inevitably come to Lemnos. The island fell under Persian rule for a time, and Steve and Bucky had thought, then, that this was the reason they’d been spared thrice over–why their skin refused to age and their hair would not turn grey. They’d dutifully fought in the Persian wars, defending the island as best they could until the Island finally joined the Athenian League, and the wars were ended. Ifestia town was rebuilt, restoring what the Persians destroyed, and peace, once again, cloaked the island as it had before. 

Steve and Bucky, believing their task had been fulfilled, retired to their newly rebuilt home, and vowed to spend what time they had left on this Earth on fulfilling their duties to each other.

Empires rose and fell around them as time wore on. The island changed hands from Athenian to Macedonian rule, then back again after spending a few blissful decades as a Roman-declared free nation. They looked on as the Greek mainland was swallowed up by Roman rule, the Romans began to build their empire off the backs of enslaved nations, sending their armies of legionnaires wherever they saw fit. As time marched on and death continued to abate them, Steve couldn’t help but think that perhaps they’d gotten it wrong, that the  _ ‘Thanos’ _ the Priestess foretold them of wasn’t on this Island after all. 

Wherever–or  _ whomever _ –Thanos was, Steve had a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that they’d remain just as they are–undying, ageless, and eternal–until they found whatever it was and dealt with it. Only then would their destiny be fulfilled. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

“I think at least a dozen of the ewes are pregnant this year,” Bucky announced one afternoon after spending a long morning with their growing flock as Steve worked on patching up repairs to their endlessly leaking roof. The house seemed to be in a constant state of repairs these days, or perhaps Steve was getting worse at differentiating between years and decades as they passed before his eyes like clouds across the sky. He couldn’t put a number of the years he and Bucky had spent on Lemnos; they kept their annual calendar by the changing seasons, by the fruit that ripened on their trees and when their herds began to lamb and kid, but the years themselves all merged into one. He knew by now they’d lived at least a few lifetimes each, despite not looking a day older than they had when they had fled the beaches of Troy. 

They’d often thought about going back, of seeing what remained of the City, and the stretch of coast where they’d spent the longest decade of their very long lives. Apparently, a monument to Steve had been built along the shoreline—well, a monument to  _ Achilles _ , to be correct. It had been some source of amusement to listen to the stories of Achilles grow and twist as the legend was passed on from generation to generation. (It had been less amusing to hear it appropriated by Alexander-the-so-called-Great as he led his armies and expanded his empire out to the east). But it had never seemed like the right time to leave their slice of paradise, though. 

“We’ll have to start thinking about how many we want to keep this year.” Bucky added, glancing wistfully over his shoulder to where the flock was grazing. 

Steve smiled and leaped down from the roof, landing just as spritely as he would have done two centuries ago. “Will we?” He knew if the decision was left up to Bucky, they’d never sell a single lamb, and their livestock would have long ago outgrown the pastures that belonged to them (or at least, which they’d staked as theirs over time; no one had yet challenged their claim to the land). There was good money to be made from the sheep’s wool and the milk they sold to neighboring smallholdings, but the best money—unfortunately—came from selling the lambs at the market. 

“We can keep at least one, Philtatos?” Bucky asked, winding a hand in the front of Steve’s sweat-stained and dust-covered tunic, batting his eyelashes and proving, once again, that he had Steve wrapped around his little finger. 

One normally meant at least three, but Steve could never bring himself to mind. “If we must.” Steve let himself be dragged forwards into a kiss, and ran his hands through Bucky’s long hair that he now kept braided back from his face in ever-increasingly intricate patterns. Steve had taken to cutting his hair shorter a few hundred years after they landed on Thanos beach, now his golden locks brush his shoulders in choppy waves, accompanied by a beard that had grown in thick and dark, and kept him looking nothing like the Achilles from the legends. 

Bucky hummed happily and let their foreheads fall together for a moment, still simply enjoying each other’s presence, even after all this time. “If you’re finished with the roof, I was going to fix some lunch.” 

There was still work to do—there was always work to do—but Steve would always make time for Bucky. “It can wait.” He promised. “Though I might be hungry for something else first,” he grinned and swept Bucky up into his arms. 

Bucky laughed, throwing his head back in a beautiful melodic lilt as he threw his arms around Steve’s neck and let himself be carried. Steve dropped Bucky onto the bed and reached immediately for the clay pot of oil they kept close by. 

“Eager.” Bucky laughed again, that beautiful sound that was literal music to Steve’s ears. 

“For you, my beloved, always.” Steve answered before he swooped in; it had been hours since they’d last lain together, after all. 

He took his fill of kisses from Bucky and captured the delicious moans he elicited with his mouth, working Bucky open with practiced care before sliding home with a smooth, slick thrust. Bucky arched to meet him and keened, before he grabbed hold of Steve’s shoulders and hauled himself up, forcing Steve to fall back on his calves and sitting himself on Steve’s knees to control the rhythm and the pace. Steve let it happen, supporting Bucky firmly in his arms as Bucky took exactly what he wanted, quickly drawing an orgasm from both of them before falling lax in Steve’s arms. 

One of the delightful benefits of their everlasting youth was an insatiable sexual appetite, and the ability to go round and after round without getting tired. Even as they collapsed together on the mattress to doze in a post-coital haze, Steve knew they’d probably wake to go again before they made an effort to fix some lunch. 

Fate, destiny, or whatever was controlling their lives, had different ideas though. Steve had barely closed his eyes when strange, horrifying images began to flash before his eyes. He gasped, reflexively gripping Bucky in his arms, as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. 

Bucky flinched and woke with a pained cry. “What–” Bucky gasped, blinking, and shaking his head. “What was that?” 

Steve just had time to pant, “you saw it too?” before the images flashed back. 

A battle. Roman legionaries. A man with olive skin and dark, close-cropped hair was dying. Steve screwed his eyes shut but it did nothing to block the images out. Swords clanged against shields, arrows flew and blood sprayed; so much blood, and mud. He could taste the blood and dirt on his tongue, he could almost feel the pain of the spears that pierced through flesh. Screams of pain and battle cries filled Steve’s ears, so loud it hurt to hear them. Steve felt Bucky bury his face against his chest, and Steve held him close as they endured the vision together. 

Just when they thought they could endure it no longer, it stopped; just as sudden and abruptly as it had begun. Daylight flooded through their eyelids once more, and Steve warily cracked an eye to see Bucky’s fearful expression swimming before him.

“What was  _ that _ ?”

Steve brushed his hand along the side of bucky’s head and stared into his eyes, reminding himself that they were here, alive, together, and far away from war, as his heart rate settled back to a normal pace and the taste of battle withdrew from his mouth. 

“I don’t know.” He admitted, breathless. “What did you see?”

“A soldier. He was dying. He  _ did  _ die.” Bucky clutched at Steve’s arms. 

But there was more to it than that, a sense, a feeling; somehow Steve  _ knew _ , though he couldn’t explain why, that the soldier was just like them. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

The same dream plagued them for weeks, each time accompanied by more vague details that Steve couldn’t comprehend without context. They felt important, though, and he tried to commit them to memory. After the initial shock the visions, or dreams, became easier to bear. They were both well versed in nightmares; their first years on the island were marred with both of them reliving their deaths at night, waking in a cold sweat each time. They knew how to gently rouse the other and kiss the bad dreams away, how a warm embrace and comforting words could help battle their night terrors, and equally that some nights were a lost cause; and it was better to sit out under the stars, or talk a walk down to the beach to sit in the cool sand and listen to the waves lap gently on the shore. 

“He’s like us.” Bucky said on one such night. He sat in the sand with Steve lying between his legs, using Bucky’s stomach as a pillow, his elbows propped on Bucky’s thighs. 

“I know.” Steve tipped his head back to gaze up at Bucky upside down, backlit by the stars. 

“He must be scared. All alone, not understanding what’s happening to him. Remember how it felt?” Bucky asked. He started carding his hands softly through Steve’s hair. Steve remembered that confusion all too well and Bucky’s fear of being a revenant. “We should help him.” 

“How?”

“I am not sure. But I know someone should not have to suffer through that alone.” 

“Are you suggesting we… try to find him?” Steve asked, tensing as worry churned in his gut. “What can we do?  _ We  _ don’t understand what’s happening.”

“But at least he wouldn’t be alone,” Bucky said quietly. He bent forwards to press a kiss against Steve’s forehead before leaning back on his elbows, Steve sunk a little as his backrest shifted. “I’ve been thinking,” Bucky’s tone was hesitant, and he paused for so long Steve feared he wouldn’t finish his thought. 

“What is it, my love?” Steve asked, giving an encouraging and inquisitive hum. 

“Thanos. Neither of us know what the priestess really meant. You said it sounded like a warning.”

“It was.” Steve agreed, he just didn’t know what it was a warning off. If he hadn’t run from her lair so quickly on Bucky’s heels, Steve might have heard more; but he would never regret going to comfort Bucky no matter what knowledge it cost them. 

“Do you know where the word comes from?” Bucky asked. He sat up again, clearly restless as he tried to find words for what he wanted to say. He wrapped his arms around Steve’s torso and hunched so his chin rested atop Steve’s head. “Athanasios.” Steve felt Bucky’s chin move as he spoke. 

“Immortal,” Steve whispered the meaning. 

“Maybe it wasn’t a place, Stéphanos. Maybe she was telling us there would be others. Maybe it’s our duty to find them.” 

Steve’s heart sank at the word ‘duty’, feeling the claustrophobic weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders once more. He thought he’d shrugged it loose twice now. 

“Where would we begin to look?” He asked, thinking practically. If Bucky had his heart set on leaving, especially leaving to  _ help _ , Steve knew he wouldn’t be able to dissuade him, but they couldn’t just dive off into the unknown. Somewhere in the course of the last half a millennia, Steve had learned the art of caution; even if he didn’t  _ always  _ heed it himself, now it seemed especially relevant. 

“He’s a Roman Centurion.” Bucky began. “I saw a map in the last vision, it marked an area:  _ Silures _ .”

Steve sighed, he’d seen it too, but hoped it would have been too fleeting for Bucky to pay attention. 

“We could head for Rome, and work our way from there.” 

“Why?” Steve asked. He twisted out from Bucky’s arm and knelt before him. “Why must we leave?” A long-dormant bitterness rose in his gut; anger at the world that Steve hadn’t felt stir for decades.

“We’ve had our time, Stéphanos,  _ centuries  _ of it. I think our destiny is calling us, you of all people know you cannot outrun fate forever.”

Steve huffed, but he didn’t have any arguments to counter with. Bucky reached for him, cupping Steve’s face and drawing him in for a kiss. 

“If the world needs us– if  _ someone _ needs us, shouldn’t we go to their aid?”

As much as Steve wanted to argue against Bucky’s compassionate stance, he found that he could not. How often had he wished that someone would have been there for them when they first rose from the dead? Steve remembered the sheer terror and confusion they’d felt those first few years. All they had was each other, and though they may not have the answers to how and why this keeps happening, Steve understood what Bucky was really saying.  _ “This man is our responsibility. He’s one of us now, and he needs our help.” _

They were going to find this man whether Steve wanted to or not, because Bucky’s heart overflowed with compassion he couldn’t contain, but nor did Steve really want him to. 

Steve sighed in resignation, but he offered up a warm smile to Bucky. His beloved returned the gesture tenfold, and Steve’s heart soared at the mere sight of it.

“To Silures we shall go then.”


	11. The Journey to Silures Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We apologize in advance 👀👀

They set out for Silures a few days later, and because they had no way of knowing just how long their journey would be, or when they would be able to return home to Lemnos, Bucky agreed to sell what remaining flock they had–as well as the fruits and vegetables they could not take with them–at the Kontian market for some much-needed coin. Steve boarded up the house while Bucky said his silent goodbyes to the peaceful life they’d built here on Lemnos. They’d had centuries, as he’d said before, to live out their lives in peace, just the way they’d always wanted to. Steve gave him more than a few good lifetimes, actually, and they’d allowed themselves to be blissfully selfish for a time, but now that time was over, and destiny, once again, was calling them to action.

This man, whose name they did not even know, was counting on them– _ needed _ them to come to his aid, even though it was possible that he did not yet know they existed. Bucky wasn’t sure if the visions were happening for their friend across the sea as well, if he saw glimpses of them as he slept, wondering who they were and what this all meant for him. 

Even after living with this gift for as long as they had, Bucky and Steve were still no closer to unraveling its secrets than they were the first time they’d resurrected, and though they may not be able to provide this man with the answers he’d undoubtedly seek, at least he’d know that he wasn’t alone.

“I was thinking,” Steve murmured as they made their way to the beach, where the boat Steve had fashioned for them was waiting. Bucky waited patiently for Steve to continue speaking, watching Steve work his bearded jaw as if he were chewing on the words in his mouth–getting a taste for them  _ before _ he let them loose for once.

Bucky set his leather pack down on the floor of the boat. “What is it, my love?” he prompted when Steve still hadn’t spoken. He could practically see the gears turning in Steve’s head, trying to properly convey exactly what he was feeling. 

“I was thinking,” Steve repeated. “Maybe we could–” he let out a long, slow breath and squared his shoulders, clenching his jaw the way he did when he was about to say or do something reckless. “I want to go back to Troy–to the place where it all started.”

Bucky froze for a moment. Steve hadn’t talked about Troy for centuries. Neither of them had, even though they still dreamt of its blood-soaked beaches nearly every night since they fled. They hadn’t talked about what happened to Briseis–who Bucky missed so dearly his heart ached like an open wound–or the myrmidons, who were like a band of blood brothers to the both of them. Steve hadn’t even uttered his father’s name since they settled here on Lemnos, so many lifetimes ago.

It was too sore a spot for them to prod at, knowing that everyone they’d ever known and loved was long dead and gone, that the world itself had taken the lives they’d once led and twisted it into something unrecognizable. Steve often claimed that it didn’t bother him. He’d shed the ill-fitting skin of Achilles long before Alexander the Great tried to wear it himself. Although, he had broken a vase when he’d heard about Alexander's little pet name for Hephaestion.  _ Gods _ , Steve wouldn’t let that go for an entire year.

_ “He calls him Patroclus! Can you believe that?!” Steve bellowed, and Bucky had to laugh at the flair of jealousy that evoked in Steve, even though it was just a name Bucky no longer even went by. But he supposed the thought of anyone other than Steve calling out that name was something Steve just could not tolerate.  _

It brought a sad smile to Bucky’s face, even now, knowing how that story ended for Alexander and Hephaestion.

“Why?” Bucky asked, full of curiosity. There was no malice in the question, and Steve knew that, it was just–why now? Why  _ there _ of all places?

“I want to see our grave, Philtatos.” Steve answered, and at that moment, Bucky could hear exactly what Steve wasn’t saying.  _ ‘I need closure, don’t you?’ _

Of course he did. Troy had become this unspoken ghost that loomed over them every second of every day. Watching each other die like that, even though those deaths weren’t in any way permanent, had left a lasting scar that even time itself couldn’t fade. It still haunted them relentlessly, despite all they’d done to pretend it didn’t.

They’d had plans to sail to the Greek mainland and travel to Silures from there, but Steve was right, you couldn’t start a new chapter before the old one was finished. This man needed them at their best, after all.

“Alright,” Bucky conceded with a solemn nod. He reached out and took Steve by the hand, pulling him into a warm embrace that finally relaxed the tense muscles in Steve’s shoulders. “I’d follow you anywhere, my love. Even to the gates of the Underworld itself. If Troy is where you need to go first, then that’s where we’ll go.”

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

They set out at dawn, skirting round the south of the island before heading east towards the rising sun. The winds worked in their favor, and Steve was happy to man the tiller, leaving Bucky free to sprawl in the prow and feel the wind whip across his face. They didn’t talk much, there wasn’t any need to. After centuries in each other’s company, they could read the others mood from a microexpression, and had perfected the art of comfortable silences. The wind carried them across the waves, towards Alexandria Troas, from where they could tack up the coast towards the old plains of Troy. 

It was nothing like their first journey across the waters from Lemnos to Troy, when Steve had paced across the deck, tossing and catching his spear over and over, with such a steady, repetitive rhythm that the oarsmen set their strokes to it. And when the shoreline began to distinguish itself from the sea, and tall trees and mountains resolved out of the blurring green-brown land, there were no crimson caped soldiers lined along the beach to halt their approach. 

Bucky vividly remembered how Steve had hefted a spear and launched it across the bay, as far as an archer could loose an arrow, spilling first blood in the war.  _ Aristos Achaion _ , standing under the gleaming sun throwing spear after spear, brushing aside arrows that dared to come close with a swift sweep of his shield. Bucky glanced back at Steve who sat behind him now, looking unassuming with his dark, honey-colored beard cropped close to his jaw, and his blond locks swept back from his forehead, curling around his jaw. It had been years since Steve had lifted a spear or a shield, but Steve was still just as strong as ever, his muscles still curved beneath his tunic, honed by the back-breaking work of keeping their house in check and the fences around their pastures strong. Unbidden, words Odysseus had once spoken to him came back;  _ ‘He is a weapon, a killer. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.’ _ Bucky had rejected those words once, and they still rang bitterly with him now; but as much as he hated to admit it, Bucky could see that Odysseus spoke true. No matter how many times Steve tried to settle down, something always seemed to call him away from a quiet life. Bucky’s only consolation was that once they found this man, once they’d helped him see he wasn’t alone - they might be able to retire again, and who knew, maybe they would find peace again in Silures. In between the bloodshed and fighting in the visions, there had been snippets of green pastures, rolling hills, and deep forests. Perhaps they could rebuild their lives there. If Bucky knew one thing, it was that home would be wherever Steve was. 

“We’re coming up on the shallows.” Steve’s soft voice broke through Bucky’s musings, pulling his attention back to the once familiar coastline of Troy. It looked the same and eerily different all at once; like it had been painted from memory–or drawn by someone who had only heard of it, but never stepped foot there before. Steve ran their boat up onto the shore and Bucky leaped out to haul it safely above the tideline, before they both stood stock still to scan the beach that had once been their home. 

There were several boats scattered further along the beach, and more fishermen out trawling the shallow waters. They eyed Steve and Bucky with suspicious eyes but did not move from their work mending nets or fixing sails, so Steve and Bucky ignored them in return. They weren’t the first visitors to come to visit Achilles' tomb and they wouldn’t be last. No doubt these shores had seen stranger travelers than them.

They’d packed a few supplies for the journey, which they shouldered rather than leaving them in the boat, and Bucky reached for Steve’s hand to give it a reassuring squeeze before they climbed the small rise that separated the beach from the plains and the once-great city which had towered over the surrounding land. 

The city was gone. Bucky had been expecting it, but it was still a shock not to see the towering walls looming over everything. In its place were fields and fields of crops, spreading across the plains, broken up by the two lazy rivers that had once framed the city walls. Settlements were built up in clusters, all low rise and built up haphazardly. In the distance, Bucky could see a fortified town surrounded by city walls, but they were nothing compared to the sharp squared stones that had once made up Troy’s towering walls; so perfectly fitted against each other it was said Apollo himself had helped raise them up. 

They both stood and stared at the fields, and the people working them under the afternoon sun, and tried to reconcile it with the place they had once known. Unknown centuries stood between them and the last time they’d walked this beach, but Bucky could remember it as if it were yesterday. They were standing near the spot where Machanon’s tent had been. Further along was where Agamemnon had made his camp, and way over at the furthest end of the beach was where the Myrmidon’s had made their camp. 

“Come on.” Bucky pulled Steve along by the hand, picking his way through the sand and picturing the tents they would have passed along the way. When they got close to the dunes that surrounded their camp, and the small hill that had bounded it on one side, the site of Achilles' tomb became obvious; a stone obelisk standing atop the hill, bleached by the sun and crumbling slightly with age. Steve gasped and stopped in his tracks at the sight; at the monument which had been built to him. The sight brought back an echo of that age-old bitterness and resentment in Bucky, whenever he was reminded of the expectations placed on Achilles and all that it threatened to take from him– even if those threats had proved false in the end. Bucky gave Steve’s hand another comforting squeeze and waited to see how his beloved would react, but Steve’s face remained passive, and as much as Bucky tried to scrutinize it, he couldn’t decipher Steve’s mood. 

They walked closer, pushing through the flowers and shrubs that had grown up around it, and as they approached, they noticed carvings etched around the base; scenes from Achilles' life, hastily carved, but clear enough: Achilles' greatest victories from the war; killing Memnon, killing Hector, killing, killing, killing. Nothing but death. Nothing of his artistry, his leadership, his courage, nothing of the playfulness of his smile, or the skill of his athleticism for anything other than killing. Bucky brushed his fingers over the carvings and frowned. 

“This is all they remember you for.”

“That is all Achilles was meant for.”

“But you are meant for so much more, Stéphanos.”

“I know. Thanks to you.” Steve turned to Bucky as the unreadable mask of his expression broke into a warm smile. “It’s missing something, don’t you think?” He nodded up at the engraving lettered above the carvings. A C H I L L E S. Nothing more. 

“What?”

Steve set his bag on the ground and dug out a knife from a leather sheath. At first, Bucky didn’t understand what Steve was adding, he blocked the carving with his body until it was almost done, then blew on it to clear the lingering dust away. Beside it, in tall bold letters: 

P A T R O C L U S. 

Bucky pressed himself against Steve’s side and hugged him tightly around the waist. He laid his head against Steve’s and they stood side by side, staring at the monument that marked the death of their former lives, each of them wondering what on earth lay in store for them now. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

They lingered on the beach until the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the ruins of the long-forgotten city under a thick blanket of stars. Steve had made them a temporary camp near the shore with what they had brought with them; just two blankets laid out on the dry sand to keep out the chill that would seep into their bones come morning. 

Their plan was to seek safe passage to Rome on one of the many ships leaving the Trojan coast at first light, and in what they initially thought was a stroke of blind luck, Steve managed to find a man named Domitus who was willing to let them hitch a ride aboard his cargo ship for only a few precious drachmae. Though, the price of Domitus’ kindness seemed a bit  _ too _ low for a heartless world such as theirs, and Bucky had noticed, belatedly, that the man seemed a little...odd at first, raking those dark, appraising eyes over the two of them as if they were nothing more than exotic trinkets he’d stumbled upon at the market.

Bucky had seen that look before on those who were less than genuine in their goodwill, and the familiarity of it sent an icy chill down the curve of his spine. It was ambitious men with clever tongues that had brought them to these shores so many years ago, offering the very thing they craved the most in return for their souls. Men like Odysseus and Agamemnon, who had effectively ensnared half of Greece to fight a pointless, decade-long war for them.

He didn’t like the way Domitus was looking at Steve specifically, and Bucky had said as much to Steve when they’d returned to their makeshift camp that evening, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that had settled in his gut like a heavy stone. 

Bucky’s head was cradled on Steve’s broad shoulder, his weary eyes transfixed on the blade in Steve's grip as it moved rhythmically against the chunk of smooth wood in his hand. Steve was carving yet another figurine, no doubt, channeling his anxiety into making something beautiful, as he often did these days.

“Do you think he’d try to harm us, Philtatos?” Steve had asked, even though he already knew what the answer would be. They had spent the last millennia witnessing the absolute worst that humanity was capable of, and rightfully, their trust in anyone other than each other was practically nonexistent at best. To Bucky, his paranoia was justified by the many deaths he’d endured at the hands of his fellow man, and really, Steve was no better when it came down to it. But after living with a chip that large on their shoulder for as long as they have, it was difficult to parse the actual threats from the imaginary ones.

“True kindness is a rarity, Stéphanous,” Bucky eventually said, and Steve, knowing Bucky the way that he did, understood what he really meant. “I do not trust it when given so freely.”

It’s been an ever-present thought in the back of their minds, what the world might do if they ever found out what the two of them were truly capable of. Bucky is under no assumption that the worst of mankind wouldn't use their gift in the most horrifying of ways. Fighting and dying in perpetuity for causes not of their own, enslaved forevermore by kings and emperors to concur foreign lands in their honor. Bucky could think of no greater torment than that, being caged like an animal, only freed when innocent blood was to be spilled. In his heart, Bucky knew Steve felt the same.

Steve pressed a kiss to Bucky’s hair, abandoning his latest work to wrap his arms around his beloved. “You know I would not let anything happen to you, right?” He murmured against Bucky’s curls, now beginning to frizz from the humidity in the air. 

Bucky nodded, because of course he knew that. Steve would rather suffer a thousand deaths than ever see Bucky harmed. Though, the thought brought him no comfort. Steve was built to be a warrior, and Bucky was not. Surely, even a man without the lust for blood and battle festering in his veins could see that. Steve would always bear the worst of what could happen to them, and they both knew it, but neither had ever spoken it out loud until now. 

“It is not my fate that worries me so,” Bucky quietly confessed, and Steve sighed, resigned to the truth of it. “It is yours.”

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

Eventually, they fell asleep to the sound of the sea, lulled by the crashing waves and the slow receding of the tide. It had reminded them of home, and even though it had only been a day since their departure, Bucky already missed it so. 

Steve’s arms were still wrapped around Bucky’s waist, holding him tightly as they fitfully slept. Bucky could admit that, while living with Steve on Lemnos, he’d grown to become rather spoiled. Steve worked hard–as did Bucky–to create a life of leisure they could lavish in, and while it wasn’t the first time they’d slept on the ground, it was obvious that they were no longer accustomed to it.

So Bucky would drift in and out, lingering in the in-between as the hours passed and the sun began its slow rise to replace the moon, painting the still-darkened sky in brilliant shades of blue and orange. But when daybreak truly came, Bucky found it impossible to even pretend to sleep any longer. He woke, feeling stiff and weary, unaccustomed to such a shallow night’s sleep, and tried to slip away from Steve without waking him; but Steve woke the moment Bucky shuffled out from his arms. 

“Morning.” Steve cracked an eye and smiled up at Bucky. His smile faded when he noticed Bucky’s discontent expression. “Everything alright, my love?”

“My back aches.” Bucky groaned.

“Come here.” Steve pushed himself to sit up and gestured for Bucky to sit between his legs, which Bucky did, with an exaggerated show of reluctance. Then Steve began to massage his back, rubbing deep, tender circles into the tight muscles that bordered his spine and wrapped around his ribs. “Is that better?” 

Bucky mumbled something incoherent and Steve just laughed in response, pressing a kiss to the top of Bucky’s shoulder before propping his chin there and wrapping his arms around Bucky’s torso in a warm hug.

“Thank you for letting us come back.” He said softly, chin bouncing on Bucky’s shoulder as he spoke. 

Bucky hummed and leaned back into Steve’s warm embrace. Wrapped in those strong arms it was difficult to believe any harm could come to them, but Bucky still felt a nagging sense of doubt in the back of his mind. The quicker they made their way to Silures and found that man, the better.

Almost as if he could read Bucky’s mind, Steve pressed a kiss against the pulse point under Bucky’s jaw before unwinding himself and jumping to his feet. “Come on, I think I spy movement down the beach. Domitus must be getting ready to push off.”

Bucky didn’t voice his concerns as they packed up their meager possessions and made their way down towards the ships preparing to launch at the far end of the beach. Gulls circled curiously, perching atop the tall masts as the crew bustled about. Bucky’s skin crawled with the way the crew eyed them as they waited on the shoreline for Domitus to give them the go-ahead to board. Steve tried to tempt him with the last of the cheese and figs they’d brought as provisions — Domitus would apparently provide room and board on the voyage — but Bucky couldn’t bring himself to eat. He already felt a little sea-sick with nerves. He swallowed back his complaints, though, as It was too late now to back out. The man already had their money, but  really, what match was this paltry crew for the mighty Achilles? 

“Ready to go?” Steve turned to Bucky with a smile and gave his hand a squeeze when Domitus whistled for them to board.

Bucky nodded, but dared not to speak, just followed Steve along the stone jetty which had been built at that end of the beach since they’d last been here; allowing ships with deeper drafts to anchor offshore. Steve climbed the gangplank first and Bucky followed uneasily, feeling the boat shift and rock under his feet as they stood on the wide wooden deck. 

“Your lodgings will be below.” Domitus smiled. His dark eyes twinkled as he gestured to a ladder descending below deck. Bucky eyed it suspiciously. It would be cramped and horrible in the hold, but he knew they hadn’t paid nearly enough to have bought space in a cabin. Though, Bucky would rather sleep out on the deck than wherever Domitus was about to stuff them.

Steve seemed ready to argue the same thing, but the crew gathered behind Domitus and crossed their arms in a show of force. The men were strong from working the sails and oars all day, and although none of them were  _ quite _ as impressive as Steve, they easily outnumbered him. 

After sizing them up himself, Steve quickly came to the same conclusion. He nodded once and twisted to descend the ladder, smiling at Bucky as his feet found the rungs beneath him. The crew moved closer behind Bucky, and he should have realized then that something was wrong, but it wasn’t until a looming figure stepped out of the shadows in the hold and grabbed Steve by the back of his tunic, pulling him off the ladder and shoving him to the floor with a thump, that Bucky knew. 

“Stéphanos!” Bucky shouted as the figure smashed a club against the back of Steve’s skull, subduing him before Steve even had the chance to begin fighting back. Bucky rushed to the ladder, but two strong pairs of arms grabbed at Bucky and held him back. He twisted free, dropping his weight into a fighting stance and using the momentum to tug himself free as Steve had once taught him, but before he managed to bring up his fists to fashion a defense, two different crew members grabbed him, this time by the arms and by the throat, and no matter how much Bucky wriggled, he couldn’t get free.

“Yes, yes. I think the two of you will do very nicely.” Domitus purred, smiling at Bucky like a wolf staring down its prey. 

Bucky glanced down the hatch to the hold, where Steve was sprawled, immobile on the floor. 

“Very nice indeed.” Domitus gave a nod and Bucky felt something sharp collide with the back of his head. He had just enough time to spit in Domitus’ face before his vision blurred, and everything went dark. 


	12. The Journey to Silures Part 2

Steve was the first to awaken, his eyes snapping open as a pained gasp was torn from his raw throat; the sound shaped by Bucky’s name resting on his tongue like a lead weight. His head was spinning, blood still sluggishly trickling down the back of his neck, matting up his shaggy hair as the dent in the back of his skull popped back into its proper place; the gash in his scalp steadily knitting itself back together as well. 

Steve realized he must have died, again, most likely from a nasty blow to the head, dealt by the hands of Domitus’ crew, no doubt. A sigh was pulled from his lungs as the memory came back to him—the false promises, the shady lodgings, the figure waiting in ambush at the bottom of the ladder. 

_ Of course it had been a fucking trap,  _ Steve thought to himself as he attempted to get his bearings, just like Bucky had tried to warn him. Steve should have expected as much from the likes of strangers, but a small part of him had held out hope that Domitus would have proved them wrong. Showed them that people weren’t as terrible as they believed them to be. But, true to the greedy nature of man, Domitus did the exact opposite. Rather spectacularly, as it turned out. 

What a fool he’d been to ever trust that man at his word.

Slowly, Steve attempted to sit up, keeping his eyes screwed shut against the pain as his skull knit itself back together. It was humid and dank, but the sound of muffled breathing and the stale smell of old sweat told Steve he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t sure he wanted to open his eyes and find what hell they’d willingly wandered into, but as he tried to move, a metallic clink and the resistance of heavy chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles pulled him from his wounded haze. His eyes flashed open, but it took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dim light spilling from the scarce lanterns that illuminated the bowls of the ship; crammed full of people Steve had never seen before.

“Fuck,” Steve hissed. He tentatively reached upwards to run trembling fingers through the blood-soaked tangle of his hair as he glanced around the confined quarters. The irons were attached to the floor, and they barely let his hands reach his hair; keeping him bound and helpless, trapped like the caged animal his captors thought him to be. He tried not to panic, but as Steve swept his eyes across the huddled bodies, his heart rate spiked. Where was Bucky? He peered through the gloom, scrutinizing the other men, no doubt similarly imprisoned or lured into captivity by Domitus, sailing off to who knew where, and as Steve’s eyes finally adjusted to the gloom, his fears were confirmed; Bucky was not among them. 

Steve’s mind began to reel, spiraling through worst-case scenarios, undercut by the awful reminder that it had been Steve  who had initially found Domitus.  _ He’d  _ paid for safe passage on a mission of mercy, and worse, he’d ignored Bucky’s misgivings and bought them nothing more than a cage and a bashed-in skull for their troubles. Steve didn’t even see the blow coming, but by the time he’d heard Bucky’s frightened shout, it had been too late for him to act.

Gods...he didn’t even want to imagine what those bastards had done to Bucky—or rather, what they were  _ still doing _ to his beloved, if Bucky were being held in a different part of the ship than Steve. The thought alone was unfathomable, and Steve vowed right then and there that he’d see them all dead at the bottom of the Aegean for this. He rattled against his chains, already feeling anger bubble beneath his skin. It had been a few decades since he’d been forced to fight, but Steve hadn’t been  _ Aristos Achaion _ for nothing, he was fairly sure he could take on their captors in a fair fight. But before his vengeance could be released upon Domitus and his men, Steve had to find out where they were keeping Bucky, and get to him before they did something unthinkable.

“Bucchae?” Steve rasped as he moved to stand. The chains didn’t let him go far, keeping him more or less fixed to the same spot on the floor, squished between the sleeping bodies of shackled prisoners, who grunted and kicked him back as he tried to move, and the bars of the cell next to his—which, to Steve’s utter horror, housed the frightened shadows of women: future servants to the elite, Steve guessed. Most likely they’d be sold off like cattle at the market. Steve shuddered at the thought, wondering what that meant for his own fate.

“Bucchae?” Steve tried once more, his voice a little louder, letting it carry throughout the brig. “Answer me. Please!” He paused, waiting on what felt like the edge of a knife for Bucky to respond. But to his despair, the only response he received was the sleepy groans of the men resting at his feet, grousing at him to  _ 'keep his fucking voice down.’ _ Steve paid them no mind. He’d scream his throat raw if that’s what it took to find his beloved. Sleep for this entire ship be damned.

“Bucchae?!” Steve called out again, desperate this time, and when Bucky still did not answer, he was unable to hide the unbridled panic that speared through the pit of his gut like molten iron. “Bucchae, where are you?! Please!—”

“On your left,” a voice answered from the space beside him, deep and a little jagged, like thunderheads rumbling in the distance. 

On instinct, Steve looked down, following the sound of the foreign voice straight to its source. A dark-skinned man was sitting there next to him, knees drawn up casually to the well-muscled barrel of his chest. His wrists and ankles were shackled to the floor, just as Steve’s were, restraining a pair of large, chiseled arms that looked as if they were strong enough to snap an iron rod clean in two. 

“What did you say?” Steve asked as he knelt, trying to get a better look at the man beside him. As if sensing this, the man tilted his face back, letting the light from the lanterns illuminate his features a little better. The deep brown hue of his eyes locked onto Steve’s gaze, and a weary smile stretched his full lips as he nodded toward the cell next to them.

“There, in the cell to your left,” the man said, pointing to the space on the floor where a crumpled body was lying in a heap next to the bars. A mop of long, chestnut hair obscured the contours of their face, but Steve would know that body anywhere. “I assume that’s who you’re looking for? They dragged in the little one just after you.”

“ _ Bucchae _ ,” Steve gasped and flung himself against the bars, raging against them as much as his shackles would allow. “Bucchae, my beloved, gods what have they done to you?” Steve couldn’t reach him, his restraints prevented Steve from fitting his hands beyond his wrists through the grated metal that separated them. “Please,” Steve begged of the women housed in the cell with Bucky, “is he alive?”

“Breathing,” one of them hissed back before dropping her gaze to the floor and shuffling as far away from Steve as her chains would allow. Her voice carried the same inflections some of the serving girls had done in Troy, the ones who had come from Lycia. Which meant Domitus had traveled far collecting his prisoners, and only made their final destination more of a mystery. Lycia was one of the unfortunate kingdoms that had been swallowed up by Roman rule, if Steve’s political knowledge served him correct; which meant Domitus could be heading for, well, pretty much anywhere. 

“Thank you,” Steve whispered back, relieved that death had spared them both once more. Although it was worrying that Bucky had not been revived; whatever injuries he’d befallen must not have been quite enough to kill him. Steve’s heart sank. They’d both learned the hard way that this was much worse; left to linger on death’s doorstep whilst their bodies battled to heal them, wracked with excruciating pain all the while. A quick death was preferable, and faster to heal from. “It’s going to be okay, Bucchae, I’ll get us out of this. I promise.”

The man behind Steve gave a disbelieving huff of laughter. “How do you plan on doing that, Flavius?” he scoffed, alluding to Steve’s blond hair with the moniker. “Even golden-haired Achilles couldn't fight his way out of this. You do know where they’re taking us?”

“No?” Steve growled, flinching at the mention of Achilles.

“The gladiator pits. Where the only choice is to die fast, or live long and fight well enough to die in the arenas in Rome itself.”

Rome. Hope flared in Steve’s chest and he clung to it, thinking of their original plan to reach Rome and from there work their way towards Silures and the man who still needed their help. Though that hope was quick to deflate as Steve glanced back at Bucky, replaced by a new fear rising in his gut. Bucky had honed his skill as a fighter over the years on Lemnos, and together they fought well—but only together. Bucky had grown deadly at close range, and his accuracy with a spear was impressive, but he frequently left himself open to mid-range attacks. Steve wouldn’t be able to guarantee they’d always fight side by side in the gladiator pits, and what would happen to them after they revived? The Romans seemed to have stolen all of their beliefs from the Greeks, and Steve couldn’t see them being any kinder to revenants. 

But as Steve stared at Bucky, the sickening realization dawned on him that Bucky hadn’t been imprisoned with the other men, with the fighters. He’d been placed with the woman, and that gave way to a whole new flood of worries. Steve wanted to retch as he understood the implications of that, and a fiery rage descended over him. Domitus would pay dearly for that insult, but first, he had to get out of these chains. 

“What will you choose?” Steve spat back at the man beside him as he rattled his chains, trying to find a weak point in the metal that he could exploit. “To die fast?” As much as Steve fought with them, the chains wouldn’t break. Eventually, he gave up, slumping back against the bars and letting his gaze fall back onto Bucky. He could see now, the tell-tale sign of Bucky’s chest softly rising and falling. Steve could only hope his beloved wasn’t in too much pain. 

“Not me,” the man answered. “I will fight to my last, as, I think, will you.”

“A lot can happen between now and Rome,” Steve grunted in reply, making the man laugh.

“I like your spirit, Flavius.”

“Stéphanos,” Steve corrected. If he was going to die, he wanted to at least die with the name he’d chosen. 

“Isaiah,” the man replied. Steve acknowledged him with a nod whilst everyone around them continued to grumble and hiss at them to shut up. “Your Bucchae will be okay, I think, but if he should perish, it should be a comfort to him that he has such a devoted avenger by his side. Are you brothers? Traveling companions, perhaps? What is this man to you, my friend?”

“Philtatos,” Steve corrected, leveling Isaiah with a challenging glare as he waited for a snide remark to pour from the man’s willing mouth. He knew how men such as them were viewed by society, and with Bucky already labeled as a  _ concubine _ by Domitus and his crew, Steve wouldn’t find it hard to believe that Isaiah would see them in the same light as well. But of course, and to Steve’s utter astonishment, that did not happen.

“I see,” Isaiah murmured, scratching his dirty nails through the overgrowth of stubble on his chin. His dark eyes grew wistful as he gazed at Bucky’s sleeping form, and he sighed; the sound a weary, pitiful thing that Steve could feel in the pit of his bones. Steve knew the feeling better than most would. “You are truly blessed by the Gods to have such a love. Though, some might say you were cursed for it all the same, for you will lose each other, Stéphanos. You to the arena and him at the hands of his Dominus, who will claim dominion over his body and spirit, just as you had once before. Such beauty will inevitably be tainted by the greed of man, just as all things will eventually.”

Steve clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth at the mere thought of what Isaiah was implying. But like hell would Steve ever allow another soul to do such vile things to his beloved. Not while Steve’s lungs still drew breath.

“That’s not going to happen.” Steve seethed, blue fire blazing behind his eyes. “I would see all of Rome burned to the ground for such offenses.”

“As would all who had their beating heart ripped from their chest by the Romans. Still, the Gods intercede for no man, no matter how fervently they pray, or how bountiful their offerings become in the name of love. Tragedy befalls us all in the end, Stéphanos, no matter how much we fight against it. Believing otherwise is foolish. I, of all people, should know.”

Steve paused at that, the anger simmering in the pit of his gut suddenly twisting into a bitter sense of empathy as the pieces of the puzzle all fell into place. Isaiah was speaking from experience, because he too had lost his beloved to the cruelty of this world. It never occurred to Steve that there were others that felt the same sting of loss that he had thrice before, and while Bucky had always come back to him each time he’d parted from this world, the marks those deaths left behind on Steve’s battered heart were an ever-present reminder that someday, all of this would come to an end. Bucky would die, and so would he, and their eyes would never open again. Steve only hoped that when that day finally came, they’d walk into the golden glow of the afterlife together, hand in hand.

“What were they called?” Steve gently asked. “Your beloved.”

“Fides,” Isaiah answered after a beat of heavy silence, whispering the name as if it were a prayer sent straight up to the heavens from the pit of his very soul. Steve’s heart mirrored the sentiment, as Bucky had become the only deity Steve had deemed worthy of his worship. So too did this man find heaven in an earthy touch, it seemed. “Named after the goddess of good faith, she is, yet the Romans have shown her none.”

“She still lives?” Steve arched a brow; his heart hopeful, though he wasn’t sure why. 

“She does,” Isaiah sighed, but Steve could still hear an undercurrent of doubt in his tone. “Though, I know not of where she is, or what has become of her. I was in Lycia looking for her when Domitus’ men seized me, spouting nonsense about crimes I had never committed. Now I must earn my freedom in the arena, and hope what little coin I’m given is enough to purchase the salvation of my wife as well.”

Steve squared his shoulders as he turned to face Isaiah, recalling the words that his beloved Bucky had spoken to him on the beaches of Thanos all those years ago. _ “We are meant to use this gift for good, help these people when they need it.”  _ he’d said.  _ “ We are but cowards if we turn a blind eye to their suffering.” _

This opportunity was staring Steve right in the face, daring him to selfishly turn away, to leave Isaiah and his wife to the fate they were trying so hard to escape. Steve knew that if this were up to Bucky, there would be no question as to what they would do, which was anything they could to grant Isaiah and his wife the freedom they were aching for. It’s a horrible feeling, being forcibly separated from the one you love. Like losing a limb, it’s debilitating, and Steve wasn’t about to let this man go through that alone. 

He clapped Isaiah on the shoulder as their eyes met, squeezing affectionately as he set his mind to task.

“Though we do not know each other well, I can see that you are a good and faithful man, Isaiah.” Steve began, watching as hope bloomed across the man's face. “Bucchae and I will do all that we can to see your wife returned to your arms, my friend. Freedom will soon be yours. I promise.”

“You cannot promise that, Stéphanos. No one can.”

Steve wanted to protest, but it died on his lips. Perhaps Isaiah was right, perhaps Steve could promise that. He’d certainly failed his promise in keeping Bucky safe. 

“But I can try,” he said instead. “That is a promise.”

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

It was impossible to sleep in the dingy hold of the boat, not with that many people crammed into the hot and humid space, not with Steve’s mind filled with worry for Bucky. But he let his eyes rest as best he could and tried to conserve his energy for the fights to come. He must have dozed at some point because he began to dream. He saw a great column of Roman soldiers marching along a straight narrow road, like ants. He saw armor glinting in the sun, slaves toiling by the roadside. He heard the whip-crack of an overseer keeping them on task; followed immediately by a startled gasp that had pulled Steve from his dreams countless times before.

“Bucchae!” Steve sprang upright and threw himself towards the bars of the cage so fast he wrenched his wrists against their restraints. 

“ _ Stéphanos!” _ Bucky’s voice sounded hoarse and strained, but it was music to Steve’s ears. “Domitus, his men!—” 

“I know. I’m so sorry, my love.” Steve drew his mouth into a thin line and gave Bucky a pleading look, hoping Bucky might forgive him for not heeding his warning sooner. Bucky blinked his owlish eyes, letting them adjust to the gloom and their predicament. Steve expected him to look horrified, but when his eyes found Steve’s again, he wore a sardonic little smile.

“Room and board, huh? His hospitality could use a little work.”

Steve didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and ended up letting out a sound somewhere in between. “Yeah, I distinctly remember paying for a room together,” he added, feeling tears well up behind his eyes. “I’m sorry Bucchae. Going back was a mistake. I should have listened…I promise I will never doubt you again.” He passed his hands as far through the grated bars as he could, trying to reach Bucky. With Bucky reaching back as far as his own chains would allow, they could just barely brush their fingertips. 

“You will.” Bucky smiled. “But I’ll still forgive you.”

“Gods above, I don’t deserve you, Bucchae.”

“Never have. You’re stuck with me anyway, though,” Bucky smiled back in response. There was an edge to his smile though, an uncertainty lurking behind his eyes. 

“Forever and always,” Steve promised. 

“Any idea where we’re going?” 

“Gladiator pits,” Steve answered, “Though I know not where.”

Bucky nodded. “And me?”

“We’re going  _ together _ , Bucchae.”

“I think Domitus had other ideas.” Bucky glanced around the cell he was in and Steve saw his shudder slightly. 

“We’re going  _ together _ .” God help whoever tried to keep them apart. 


	13. Rome- Part One

Steve didn’t know how long they'd been at sea, but he assumed it had been a few days. His limbs were cramped and he felt restless by the time they heard the sound of voices in the dark; loud and riotous as they echoed across the cells. Steve had never spent so long sitting in one place in his life, all of his pent-up energy buzzing beneath his skin like bees swarming around a hive. He tensed, upright and alert as soon as a door was opened at the far end of the hold and light flooded in from a lantern held aloft.

“Which one?” A crewmate was saying to the other, shining a lantern into the dank confines of each cell they passed by; the pair looking for something with a peculiar sense of excited urgency. Steve didn’t know what was happening, but judging from the stench of wine and the drunken slurring of their words, he doubted it would be anything good. 

“Ah, that one,” the other replied as they approached the cell to Steve’s left, where Bucky was just starting to wake from a shallow sleep.

“Wake up, cinaedus!” The short, round one impatiently bellowed. His accent was thick, the dialect undoubtedly Roman. Steve wanted to break his jaw the instant his mouth opened. “The ship has docked, and it is time for you to fulfill your duties.”

Anger erupted through Steve, the likes of which he hadn’t felt in decades. _Cinaedus?_ How fucking dare they! Steve strained against his chains, determined to find a way to break them, but they held firm. Steve was forced to watch helplessly as Bucky was plucked from his cell, along with a few women seemingly chosen at random. 

“NO!” Steve bellowed. “You can’t take him!”

Of course, the men ignored Steve's plea, chaining Bucky and the women together and leading them from the cell towards the upper deck. Steve wrestled with his chains, ignoring how they cut into his skin. He pulled against them, straining as far as he could, left to watch as Bucky was marched away from him.

“Bucchae,” Steve’s voice cracked as he crumbled to the floor in a clatter of iron. He curled in on himself and pressed his forehead to the floor as desperate sobs wracked through him. He’d failed Bucky. Again. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

They came for him a little while later, once Steve’s despair had given way to blinding agony. They cranked open the cell door and swung the lantern around to shine in their faces. After days spent in the dark, it was almost enough to blind them, but Steve didn’t miss his chance to lash out with a headbutt when the man leaned in to unbolt Steve’s chains from the floor. The blow sent the man reeling back and Steve used the opportunity to spring to his feet and wrap his chains around the man’s neck, strangling the life from him with a vicious tug. The man dropped to the floor and Steve finished unbolting Isaiah’s chains, before tossing him the key and running after Bucky. 

He pushed through the door, surprising the guard standing behind it and knocking him out with one solid blow to the side of his temple. Steve grabbed the dagger the man wore on his belt and clamped it between his teeth as he climbed the narrow wooden staircase that would lead to the desk. He waited for a beat to catch his breath and sprang through the hatch, drawing the dagger and spinning into combat with moves that came back to him as easy as breathing. His hands and feet were still shackled together with a length of chain, but it didn’t stop him from landing powerful blows on the short round man who’d dared to insult Bucky’s virility, nor the man who’d landed the blow on Steve’s skull just days before. He threw the dagger straight through another’s neck, and when the men pulled back to regroup, Steve took a chance to catch his breath and scan around for Bucky. He spotted him just beyond the gang-plank, chained to the other women, being marched towards a bustling marketplace. 

Steve pulled his focused back on the crew, dragging the back of his hand across his bloody mouth as they re-launched their attack. He weathered a few blows, ducked and spun, and had he not been chained, the fight would have been over in a flash. As it was, he’d lost the element of surprise and the men acted with far more coordination than Steve had expected. They tackled him to the ground and managed to keep him there until a few more prisoners were pulled up on deck—Isaiah among them—to be used as hostages. 

“Give it up,” Domitus commanded. “Or they die. Your precious cinaedus too.”

Steve growled and huffed with indignant anger, but he surrendered. Too much innocent blood had already been spilled at his hands, he wouldn’t let these men die for his pride; and he knew that Bucky would never forgive him for it either. 

Steve was shackled behind Isaiah, and a whip was cracked against the back of his calves to get them moving.

“Sorry,” he muttered to Isaiah. 

“You saw an opening and took it,” Isaiah returned in a low voice. “That’s more than most would have had the courage to do.” 

They were dragged, stumbling and dragging their feet, to the center of the market place where the slave auction had been set up. The sight of it filled Steve with despair. During their time on Lemnos, he’d forgotten some of the horrors men inflicted on each other; this was a cruel and unpleasant reminder. He spotted Bucky across the square. His eyes were downcast and his shoulders were shaking, from that distance Steve couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or rage; he suspected a mixture of both. He tried to catch Bucky’s eyes, tried to share a look of reassurance, and defiance, but Bucky didn’t look up. 

“The blond one,” a stern voice called out and Steve found himself being manhandled away from the rest of the group for a closer inspection. The man poked at Steve’s arms, making him flinch and growl, to which the man just laughed. “He’s bleeding,” the man tutted at Domitus. “Can’t keep him in check.”

“He has spirit, this one. Tried to fight his way out this morning,” Domitus laughed “He’s strong, and he knows how to fight. He’ll draw crowds.” he promised.

“I won’t fight for you,” Steve spat. Across the square he watched Bucky being appraised by a sleazy looking buyer and shuddered.

“Oh, you will. How much?”

Steve tuned out the negotiation as he watched Bucky being inspected like he was a fucking prized horse. 

“I won’t fight,” Steve snapped his attention back to the man set on buying him. “Unless you buy him too.” He nodded at Bucky. The man followed Steve’s gaze and arched an eyebrow.

“Why would I want a pleasure slave?” the man laughed.

Steve took half a step forwards and clenched his fists before Domitus’ man reined him in. He bristled with impotent rage. 

“He’s not a _pleasure slave_ ,” Steve growled. “He’s a fighter. A good one. As am I. Buy him too, I'll be the best fighter you’ve ever seen,” Steve bargained. 

“Interesting,” the man mused. He signaled for an attendant and whispered something that Steve didn’t catch. The attendant hurried across the square and after an intense conversation, began to haul Bucky back with him. Bucky finally looked up to meet Steve’s eyes, looking confused and lost. 

“Bucchae,” Steve exhaled, his shoulders sagging in relief.

“Very interesting. You would do anything for him?” The man asked, and maybe Steve should have tried to play it cooler, but the man snapped his fingers and his attendant promptly kicked Bucky’s knees out from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor. Steve couldn’t hold himself back. He finally wrenched himself free from Domitus’ man and rushed forwards, decking the attendant before twisting to help Bucky to his feet. All at once, a dozen swords were pointed at Steve, but he ignored them, focusing on Bucky’s bright eyes and gripping him tightly. 

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Stéphanos, what are you doing?” Bucky gripped Steve back just as tightly, glancing at the swords directed at them with worry.

Domitus looked furious, but their prospective buyer looked delighted. 

“This _will_ make things interesting. How much for both?”

“Ten thousand,” Domitus recovered himself to smile genially whilst the buyer laughed.

Steve didn’t hear how much they were eventually sold for, he couldn’t focus on anything other than Bucky and the relief of finally having him back in his arms. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he promised. “We’ll be together. It’ll be okay.”

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

The man that was now their dominus, Steve soon came to learn, was an aspiring politician by the name of Caius Aurelius Arcadia–or, Arcade, as some of his associates referred to him as. He wasn’t much to look at, in Steve’s humble opinion, with skin a shade too pale and wiry, copper-colored hair that was long enough to brush the freckled slopes of his shoulders. But what Arcade lacked in outer appeal, he more than made up for with a powerful sense of charisma. 

It didn’t take Steve long to figure out that Arcade was as gifted with words as Odysseus had once been, able to twist any situation to his advantage with a simple wag of his tongue. Steve knew well enough by now that men such as Arcade were dangerous, unpredictable, and thrived off the chaos they stirred up around them. He’d be very difficult to outwit, but Steve always did love a good challenge.

Though to Steve’s astonishment, Arcade walked away that afternoon with four new prized fighters to fill his Ludus, and because his tongue was laced with silver, he only ended up paying half the price that Domitus initially required, stating that he was owed a considerable discount for being sold a pair of giraffes that wouldn’t mate the last time he’d come to the market in Achaea. Domitus, of course, couldn’t refute that accusation when Arcade literally had him by the balls, choking off the protest working its way up his throat with a firm squeeze that had every man present--Steve and Bucky included--wincing right along with him.

It was quite a spectacle. But one done for a singular purpose--to show off the measure of Arcade’s influence and quash any hint of rebellion in the hearts of those who now called him _master_. Steve and Bucky, unfortunately, among them.

“I should be offended,” Bucky muttered some time later, when all was said and done and the four of them–Isaiah and a Syrian man who called himself Tiberius now among them–were freshly shackled and loaded into the back of a wagon lined with strong, iron bars like they were nothing more than a pack of feral beasts. But of course, to Arcade, that was all they were. “But how can I be? My soul was sold to Arcade for 200 denarii, but I know in my heart that I'd go with him freely, let him do whatever he wanted with my body if that's what it took to be with you."

Steve bared his teeth, lips curling up in a sneer at the mere thought of such a thing.

"If he lays so much as a finger on you, I'll–"

"I know." Bucky cut in, sighing heavily. "There is nothing you would not do to protect me, Stéphanos, and I for you, but now Arcade knows that as well, and he will use that against us."

"I will not let him," Steve vowed, as stubborn as he ever was. "Our lives are our own, and some way, somehow, I am going to see us all free."

The smile that stretched Bucky’s lips, then, wasn’t one that Steve was intimately familiar with. It was a dark, unpleasant thing that didn’t quite reach his eyes; bitter and resigned in a way Steve had never seen in him before. It left him feeling unmoored–desperate to find a way to soothe the pain he found lingering in Bucky’s eyes. But really, what could he do? They were locked up tight in the back of a wagon, surrounded by armed guards that wouldn’t hesitate to cut them all down–on Arcade’s orders, no less–if Steve even looked at them the wrong way.

There was no easy fix for this. No way out that didn’t end in innocent bloodshed. They were trapped, left at the mercy of a man who was building an empire in blood and sand. And in Steve’s mind, he had no one to blame for this but himself.

"You will try," Bucky murmured after a beat, because if Bucky knew anything about his beloved, it was that once he’d set his mind to something, there was no way of stopping him until he’d seen it through. No matter the cost, Steve was a man of his word. "And I pity the poor soul who seeks to stand in your way."

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

Up the road a stretch was yet another boat waiting for them in the harbor. It was a smaller vessel than Domitus’, but large enough to transport Arcade’s goods from Greece to his home in Capua. 

Steve had overheard him talking to a man he called Doctorae--the one who would be tasked with breaking in the new gladiators before the games in a month’s time. His dark-brown skin wore the thick scars of a warrior who’d seen far too many battles, and from the looks of it, he’d lost an eye to a particularly vicious skirmish that almost cost him his life; if the jagged scar running from scalp to cheek was any indication.

Steve didn’t put up much of a fight when he was hauled out of the wagon and stuffed into a cage in the belly of Arcade’s ship, mostly because Bucky was chained up right beside him, rather than stowed in a separate cell as Domitus had done. He assumed that was done purposely, as a way to reward Steve’s compliance. Just as Bucky had said, Arcade was dangling Bucky before Steve like meat before a lion, and for now, it was working, despite Steve’s reluctance. He didn’t want to know what would be done to Bucky if he’d stepped out of line.

The voyage took another day to complete, which they’d spent more or less in the throes of restless sleep. Bucky looked bone-weary and haggard by the time Doctorae pulled them from the boat onto dry land--all four shackled together in a straight row as they marched like ants from Cumae to Capua, all while Arcade rode in the carriage they were pulled behind. 

The trek was long, lasting from first light to the early rays of the evening sun, and then they were finally standing before the gates of an unassuming house surrounded by jagged cliffs and a steep drop that would surely deter any valiant escape attempt. But, they had surely experienced worse deaths than that and walked away from it, so if push came to shove, they could always take the hard way out. Though, for practical reasons, Steve would only choose death for him and Bucky as a last resort. He’d made a promise to Isaiah, after all, and Steve was determined to keep it.

As they were herded in through the gates, Arcade stopped the procession with a firm hand to Steve’s wrist. 

“Do remember your promise, Grecian,” Arcade said, a stern warning in his voice that carried with it a promise of its own. “In this Ludus, compliance comes with privilege. You fight for me in the arena, and I’ll allow you to keep your precious concubine. Even permit you to share a cell, if you’d like.”

Steve visibly bristled at the derogatory remark, but surprisingly, he held his tongue. He’d drive a sword through Arcade’s belly soon enough, but for now, Steve had to play by the rules; a concept that had always festered in his gut like spoiled meat. But for Bucky, he’d learn to grin and bear it, bide his time until the opportune moment.

The grin that suddenly split Arcade’s face was a nasty thing, full of poisonous intent and a need for violence that sat just underneath his skin; easily concealed with pretty words and manipulative smiles. Steve recoiled from the mere sight of it.

“Should you break that promise, and try and cross me...” Arcade continued, letting his eyes slide from Steve to Bucky, who stood stock-still behind his beloved; eyes downcast and utterly silent. But a yelp was torn from his lungs as Arcade grabbed Bucky by the hair and pulled, craning his head back so the point of his dagger rested just underneath Bucky’s chin. It was as clear a message as any, and even though Steve wanted nothing more than to break every bone in this man’s body, he knew that he couldn’t. Not now, at least.

“I will paint the walls of your cell in his blood.” Arcade hissed between clenched teeth. “Don’t believe me? Try and test me. I may not have use for a warm hole like him, but I know of those who do. Cross me, and you will never see him again. That I can promise you.”

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

The next thing Steve knew, they were being pushed into a cell that was locked swiftly behind them, and left to stew in Arcade’s deadly promise. 

“How dare—!” Steve raged against the locked door after Arcade had departed. He pounded his fists against the solid wood, but the door didn’t budge on its hinges; for which Steve was silently grateful. He had no doubt Arcade would be true to his word, and it wouldn’t do to earn his ire just yet. Steve let his fists drop and tried to calm the anger simmering in his gut with deep gulps of air. When he no longer felt the urge to smash everything in sight, Steve turned his attention to Bucky, who was keeping surprisingly quiet in the corner of their cell. There was a single pallet on the floor and a covered bucket; hardly the comforts they’d grown accustomed to in Lemnos. Bucky stood by the far wall with his arms crossed tightly across his chest, gripping his arms and shivering as he did in the marketplace.

“Bucchae,” Steve crossed the small space, bundling Bucky into his arms. “Don’t listen to him. To any of them. They don’t know your worth.”

“What worth?” He pulled back and blinked up at Steve. “I have no worth here. I am no fighter. Never have been.” 

“You are,” Steve protested. “We fought side by side protecting Lemnos,” he insisted, but Bucky only laughed mirthlessly.

“You mean for every ten men you took down, I caught the one you’d overlooked?” Bucky’s voice sounded bitter. “I don’t think that strategy will help us here.”

“You have great skill, Bucchae, you’ve just never _wanted_ to fight —”

“Of course I’ve never _wanted_ to fight!” Bucky shouted back. “I’ve never _wanted_ to hurt anyone in my life! But —” he broke off with a choked gasp as tears began to roll down his cheeks. Steve longed to embrace him, but Bucky kept his hands up, holding Steve back. “It doesn’t matter. Even if I could fight, I’ll never be a great warrior like you, I’ll never be one of the favorites in the arena. They’ll never see as anything more than a warm hole to fuck. Maybe they’re right.”

“Bucchae,” Steve tried, but Bucky cut him off with another bitter outburst.

“That’s all I’ve ever been. Defined by my relationship to you. Patroclus: Achilles’ lover. A fucking pet name for Alexander to use. I’ll never be your equal.” 

“They’re wrong.” Steve gripped Bucky’s arms and peered into his eyes, willing him to believe, to share Steve’s conviction of how wonderful Bucky was. “You’ve always been a better man than I. Your heart and your compassion are worth a thousand times more than my sword arm.” 

“Really? Because I think Arcade paid a great deal more for your sword arm than he did for me.”

“Do you really trust these men to define your worth? Someone who puts a monetary value on someone’s life, who trades them like cattle — don’t let _them_ define you, please. Beloved. You are worth more than all the stars in the cosmos, than all the petals on all the flowers in all the world, you are my moon when I'm lost in darkness, my warmth when I shiver in cold. I love you beyond all measure and reason, and I will not let what these slavers say about you change a thing about it. Do you hear me?” Steve moved his hands to cup Bucky’s face and pressed their foreheads together. “Do you hear me?”

Bucky didn’t answer. 

“We will get out of here, Bucchae. We will find that man in Silures, and we will show the world the measure of your kind heart. I swear it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: A cinaedus is a derogatory remark the Romans used for men that were on the receiving end of pleasure. Basically to them, it was a-okay if you were topping, but not if you were bottoming.


	14. Rome - Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting today, updates will be moved from every Sunday to every other Sunday. JJK and I just want to thank each and every one of you for giving this fic love, and for understanding. We'll see you all in two weeks ❤

The first few weeks in Capua were uneventful. They trained, and they trained, and they trained; spending endless hours in the practice arena of the Ludus, learning highly stylized forms of combat designed to appeal to the crowds. It was hot and dusty in the arena, with no shade to speak of, and the scant clothing they were afforded did nothing to protect them from the harsh roman sun or the uncomfortable humidity. Steve’s skin quickly bronzed and hardened back to how it had looked at the height of the Trojan War, and Bucky was not the only one who watched on, transfixed, with how Steve moved and danced around the arena with deadly grace. 

Steve’s body was built for battle, and though Bucky couldn’t mistake Steve’s anger at being forced into this type of senseless fighting; he did seem to thrive from the training. Bucky lurked at the edge of the arena, pretending to polish a wooden spear as he watched Steve spar against Isaiah; ducking and weaving away from each other’s swords, spinning away from slashes that would have cut the legs out from underneath a slower man. Steve leaped back from a thrust Isaiah aimed at the exposed planes of Steve’s belly, not letting the wooden sword even scratch him as he twirled back to strike at Isaiah’s throat, stopping just shy of ramming it home. Isaiah dropped his sword in defeat and laughed. 

“You’re fast, Stéphanos!” Isaiah grinned. “How well do you fare two on one?” He called over Tiberius, who had been bought in Achaea at the same time as they had, and together they relaunched their attack. Steve swatted them both back with ease. He seemed to glow under the light of the sun as it bounced off his sweat-slicked muscles and rippled through the golden strands of his hair. It was growing out again, in the month — had it really been a month already? — since they’d left Lemnos, it now graced the tops of his shoulders when he wore it loose, and though his beard remained thick and dark, his hair looked brighter every day. 

“Arcade was watching you today,” Bucky told Steve later that night; after another meal of beans and barley (Bucky had never missed their kitchen in Lemnos more, nor the fish they’d dined on in Troy). It was dark in their small cell, they weren’t afforded any lamps, and the door to the barracks was always promptly locked behind them, leaving a narrow crack around the frame for light to seep through. The cells were small and dank. The pallet was uncomfortable, and had they not been able to take comfort from one another, Bucky was sure he would have been driven mad.

“Hmm?” Steve was admirably trying to braid Bucky’s hair in the dark; he’d become quite adept at weaving the strands together by touch alone.

“He looked impressed.”

“Good.” Steve pressed a kiss to the nape of Bucky’s neck and Bucky steeled himself from the bitterness that threatened to rise in his throat. He hated depending upon the whims of one man for their safety, hated how Steve was having to perform like a dancing monkey just to keep Bucky alive — worse that Steve seemed glad to do whatever it took to ensure Bucky remained unharmed.

They’d come a long way from the stubborn pride that had prevented Steve from fighting at Troy; sometimes Bucky wasn’t sure if he missed that stubborn steak. At least he understood that. Bucky didn’t feel worthy of the selfless love Steve now bestowed upon him. 

“We just have to keep him happy a while longer, until we can plan a way out of here.” Steve promised.

“I hear he wants to showcase you in a fight soon.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know, I just —”

“Bucchae, you know I’ll be fine.” 

“Just don’t do anything stupid.” Bucky pleaded. The last thing they needed was their immortality to be discovered now. Who knew what Arcade might do with _that_ knowledge. 

“How can I? I’ll leave all the stupid here with you.”

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

But Arcade was a showman, a master of entertainment and he had a surprise in store that neither Steve nor Bucky would ever have seen coming. 

It was customary for the gladiators to bathe together after training, and for the most prized fighters to receive massages if their Doctorae deemed it necessary to soothe their overworked muscles. The night before Steve’s first scheduled appearance in the Amphitheatre of Capua, Steve was whisked away for a bath and a massage, leaving Bucky to dine alone with the other lower-ranked gladiators not deemed worthy of such luxuries. Bucky had befriended a few of them, but it was difficult to get too close to anyone who might have to turn around and slaughter you in the arena in a few weeks. 

Bucky toiled through his dinner, pretending the bean and barley mush was topped with cured mutton and that the vinegary wine he washed it down with was something rich and sweet Steve had brought back from town. Of course, he could daydream all he wanted; it didn’t do anything to actually make it go down any easier. 

By the time he returned to their cell, Steve was sitting on the pallet holding a stack of leather armor, looking scrubbed and clean. Bucky froze in the doorway before he was shoved inside and it was locked behind him. They’d finally been given a lamp in the corridor and it spilled yellow light across the bare walls, across Steve’s smooth skin, and his shaved face. 

Bucky had almost forgotten how young Steve looked under his beard. Without the dark scrub covering his jaw, his face looked youthful and beguilingly innocent. 

“You shaved.”

“Arcade’s idea, apparently,” Steve huffed. “It gets worse.” Steve placed the breastplate he’d been holding on the pallet beside him and reached for a helmet bucky hadn’t noticed before. Steve tossed it to him and Bucky caught it, confused until he turned it over. The horsehair plume should have been a dead give away, but the shape of the cheek irons was unmistakable. It was nowhere near as finely wrought as the helmet Achilles had worn into battle, but it bore the same iconic look. When Steve donned the helmet he would be Achilles, reborn. 

“He can’t expect you to wear this,” Bucky’s throat felt thick and heavy. He thought they’d outrun their past. 

“His idea of a joke, I’m sure. A memorable name for the crowds to cheer.”

“He doesn’t know —?”

“How right he is? I hardly think so.” Steve shook his head and flexed his hands by his thighs. “The fates certainly have a cruel sense of humor.”

“As if we didn’t know that already.” Bucky gave Steve a soft smile and placed the helmet on the pallet by the rest of the armor, before coming to kneel in front of Steve, clasping a gentle hand over his knee. Their eyes met in the dim light of the lantern, and briefly, Bucky could see the conflict burning in the windows of Steve’s eyes, twisting around him like snakes to crush the breath from his lungs.

Achilles had been dead and buried for over a millennium, but as all things born from greatness inevitably became, his ghost had transcended the grave and lingered on as a legend, looming over Steve’s shoulder like a vengeful spirit. More than anything, Bucky longed to take that burden from his shoulders, to cast that lingering spirit out and set his beloved free. Truly free. But he couldn’t. So long as the legend of Achilles remained alive in the hearts of men, Steve would always be bound to it in some way.

It broke Bucky’s heart, knowing that come the morning, Steve will be forced to don the long-rotten skin of the man he used to be. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, when the games began and the ravenous crowd would cheer for innocent blood to be spilled. If Bucky fell in the arena–or Gods forbid, Steve–there would be no telling what Rome would do with them once they’d witnessed the truth. It was a thought that was always buzzing in the back of their minds, keeping them awake at night. But Bucky didn't want to think about that right now. 

If this was truly their last night together before fate, once again, tried to rip them apart, Bucky didn’t want to spend it dwelling on the what-ifs. Perhaps, just for tonight, they could pretend that they were home, safe in their bed on Lemnos, and that this was all just a vivid nightmare they wouldn’t be forced to live out in the morning.

Maybe just for a little while, they could still be Steve and Bucky; two lovers who’d long overstayed their welcome on this earthly plane.

But could it be so simple?

“Stéphanos,” Bucky murmured, soft and questioning. Steve’s eyes darkened a little at the sound of his voice, head tilting in silent understanding. They’d never needed to ask outright, not when their bodies were so in sync, but Bucky did so anyway, because it had been far too long since they’d made their desires known so audibly. “Lie with me tonight? Please.”

The answer would always be a resounding yes, Bucky knew, but still, Steve glanced around warily, hesitating briefly at the thought of them expressing their love so openly. Their cell was nothing more than iron bars and stone walls, left open and vulnerable to prying eyes. Arcade didn’t see the point of giving his fighters any sort of privacy, so intimacy - especially the kind they’d been more than a little indulgent in on Lemnos - hadn’t been a possibility for either of them.

But, as Bucky knew he would, Steve squared his jaw and gave a quick nod. Bucky, who didn’t need much prompting to put lips and teeth to his lover's beautiful skin, took it from there. 

It had been over a month since they’d been allowed to take refuge in the warmth of each other’s bodies, after all - the longest they’d gone since that fateful night in Chiron’s cave, when apprehension finally gave way to their building desire. Bucky still remembered that night clearly; the sweet smell of Steve’s skin, the heady taste of his kiss. The solid weight of him resting in Bucky’s palm as they hastily stroked each other to completion.

It was the memory of that night - of their first time lying together as lovers - that ultimately pushed Bucky to act so boldly. He slid his hands up the muscled length of Steve’s thighs, softening his gaze as he pushed the thin fabric of Steve’s tunic up to the juncture of his narrow hips and over the fattening bulge of his cock. He watched, transfixed, as Steve’s teeth sank into the plump curve of his bottom lip, and then he slowly leaned back onto his elbows, wordlessly offering every inch of himself up to Bucky’s greedy hands and the wet heat of his mouth.

“You're sure?” Bucky asked before he took that final step. They’d never done anything like this before, and it was terrifying and a little exciting, knowing that anyone could walk by and see them at any moment. “It’s never too late to back out, my love. I would understand if you-”

“I would never,” Steve promised, as confident as he ever was, and Bucky had to laugh, because it seemed that some things would never change. “What do I care if others see? You are the only one that matters. Now, come to me, Philtatos. It’s been too long since I’ve tasted your kiss.”

Steve held out his hand in silent invitation, pleading with the heat in his eyes for Bucky to settle into his lap and take from Steve whatever he wanted. And usually, Bucky would have without question, if he didn’t already have something else in mind. Bucky shook his head playfully, pressing little kisses to the hard curve of Steve’s knee, then more a bit higher up on his thigh.

Their eyes stayed locked on each other as Bucky gently pushed Steve’s legs apart, trailing a line of scorching hot kisses up the firm insides of his beloved’s thighs. Steve’s hand dropped back down onto the pallet as he watched, sighing softly at the kitten-like licks Bucky left behind on his quest to get to Steve’s cock; already hot and hard from the first touch of Bucky’s lips, curving up towards the flat plains of his belly.

“You’re so beautiful,” Steve suddenly said, fingers tenderly carding through the silk of Bucky’s hair. “My sweet Adonis.”

Without thought, Bucky leaned into the touch, seeking out the warmth of Steve’s palm like a flower craving sunlight. The praise went straight to his head, as it normally did when Steve lavished him with honey-sweet words, and Bucky smiled up at him, regarding him for a moment longer before he went any further. Gods only knew what might happen if they were caught by Arcade.

Though strangely, the apprehension he felt about that was almost like an afterthought, rather than the pressing concern it should be. The cells were just as noisy as they always were after meals, and with the games but a few precious hours away, Bucky was sure they were all feeling the need to fill up the silence with the sounds of life before some of them were parted from this world in the morning. Eventually, Doctorae would come through and silence the incessant chatter, but for now, life went on. 

The added cover of sound gave Bucky the necessary push he needed to take that final leap, and without saying a word, his lips parted and the whole of Steve’s cock was swallowed up by the slick heat of his mouth.

“Oh, Gods,” Steve gasped, head thrown back to knock against the wall. Bucky grinned around the length in his mouth as he bobbed his head, getting Steve as wet as he possibly could. His tongue lazily traced the veins on the underside before dipping into the leaking slit, and the way the muscles of Steve’s thighs tensed underneath his hands–trying, and failing, not to buck up into Bucky’s mouth–drove him absolutely wild.

Bucky pulled off with an obscene pop, licking his lips and preening at the way Steve’s eyes tracked the motion. The skin of his cheeks was tinted a pretty shade of pink, blue eyes nearly swallowed up by the black of his pupils. Steve looked debauched and hungry, staring down at Bucky like he wanted to eat him raw.

“Come here,” Steve breathed with a firm tug to Bucky’s hair, guiding him from the floor to settle onto Steve’s lap, and this time, Bucky was helpless not to obey. “Let me kiss you, my love. Please.”

Bucky relented with a coy grin, palms pressed firmly to the swell of Steve’s chest, pushing him down against the thin mattress until Bucky was hovering over him; his long hair curtaining around their faces as he leaned in to claim Steve’s mouth.

The kiss was anything but sweet; all tongue and teeth as their restraint quickly unraveled around them. Steve’s lips parted without much of a fight, and Bucky kissed the breath from his lungs for it, relishing how pliant Steve was underneath him. What Bucky wouldn’t give to take his beloved apart piece by piece until all that was left was a quivering mess of tear-tracked and teeth-marked flesh, but he couldn’t. Not now, at least.

They had no oil to ease the joining of their bodies, and Bucky knew from experience that spit wasn’t nearly enough for what they both wanted to do. So instead, Bucky reached down between them, rucking up his own tunic to take them both in hand.

Steve groaned like he’d been mortally wounded when Bucky began to slowly stroke, eyes rolling back into his head as his spit-slicked mouth parted on a barely intelligible – but very _loud –_ curse.

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh, but he slapped his free hand across Steve’s lips to keep him quiet as he worked them both over, quickening the pace to something that had the laughter in his throat twisting into a moan of his own. The pointed look Steve shot him a second later was enough to call Bucky out on his hypocrisy, but he didn’t relent, just tightened the hold his fingers had on Steve’s jaw, because if anyone was going to get them caught, it was going to be Steve.

He squeezed his fingers around the girth of them, twisting his wrist on the upstroke in that way Steve liked. Predictably, Steve’s back arched sharply, hips thrusting into the tight circle of Bucky’s hand. Steve was getting close. They both were, and though Bucky wanted to draw this out as long as he could, tease and torment Steve until he finally broke down and begged, he knew their time was limited. 

Steve came first, panting against Bucky’s palm as he spilled onto his belly, and the look of bliss on Steve’s face was more than enough to shove Bucky over the precipice as well. His cock jerked, adding to the mess on Steve’s stomach as he climaxed; teeth biting into his swollen lips to stop the shout that threatened to expose them. 

Bucky shifted once they’d caught their breath, letting go of Steve’s jaw as he settled on the mattress beside him. The servants' work in the bathhouse was utterly ruined now, but he doubted Steve cared. His eyes were closed and there was a blissful, sleepy smile on his face. A smile Bucky put there himself.

He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but Bucky was thankful that he had one more chance to see Steve smile so carelessly. Gods knew it was only a matter of time before even that was taken from them.


	15. Rome- Part Three

Luckily, no one spotted them. At least, no one who cared. Steve may have been a little loud with his moans, but there was no such thing as privacy in the barracks, and it wasn’t like they’d never heard anyone else jacking off in the dark of their cell before. Steve was overcome with a blissful satisfaction as he and Bucky curled against one another and fell asleep. For a moment, Steve could block out the worry of tomorrow and imagine they were back on Lemnos, in their own corner of paradise. 

Of course, that feeling couldn’t last. They were woken up at dawn as Doctorae marched through the barracks, rattling a baton against their cell doors to rouse them into action, and the horror of their situation came crashing back in. 

They were fed another bland meal of ‘gladiator mush’, and given a chance to warm up in the practice arena before it was time for Steve to don the armor. To don the name he’d shaken off a millennia ago. To face his reckoning in the Amphitheatre of Capua. 

Steve was reluctant to don the armor. It was nothing like the tailored pieces he’d once worn, the style and fit were wrong, but as Bucky helped him fasten the cuirass, Steve couldn’t help but be reminded of Troy. 

“Don’t get killed,” Bucky hissed at him under his breath as he fastened the greaves to Steve’s arms. 

“I won’t,” Steve promised. He couldn’t. More to the point: he couldn’t afford to let Arcade learn of his immortality. They no longer feared death, because in death, they would have been reunited. Immortality meant they could be trapped worlds apart for the rest of eternity. Steve knew he could never let that happen. 

“I mean it, Steve. Don’t do anything stupid. Come back to me.”

“Always.” Steve spared a furtive look around the barracks, but no one was paying them any attention, so he drew Bucky in for a kiss. Far more hurried and rushed then he would have liked, but Steve was still grateful for it. He was grateful for every kiss and every moment they shared.

Arcade’s Ludus was situated on the outskirts of Capua, and Steve soon found himself being chained to the other gladiators Arcade planned to showcase at the games before they were thrown into the back of a wagon and driven through the city. Steve didn’t know what the games were celebrating, but it felt like the whole town had come out to line the city streets with dancing and singing. And however many people had been celebrating outside, it was nothing compared to the commotion and chaos inside the arena.

Steve was thrust into a cell with a gated door that would lead right out into the center of the arena before they were unchained and finally given their weapons. Steve hefted the spear and shield he’d been given and tested their balance before he stared out through the bars to gaze upon the rows upon rows of spectators who had gathered to marvel at the carnage. Why anyone would willingly want to watch men slaughter each other was beyond him. And a slaughter it would be if the red blood smeared across the sand of the arena was anything to go by. 

“You’re fighting for entertainment,” Doctorae reminded them, safely beyond the bars of the caged cell his gladiators were crammed into. “Don’t forget that. The people want a show, fail to please them and they’ll kill you, even if you survive the fight. Win the crowd and you can win eternal glory.” 

Steve ground his teeth. He’d had enough of glory, he just wanted to get Bucky, Isaiah, and as many others as he could as far away from there as possible. He glared at Doctorae, holding the man’s gaze and bristling with anger and frustration, but Doctorae merely gave him an impassive smile back. Idly, Steve wondered how many gladiators the man had seen pass through his care. How many lives he’d seen wasted in the arena.

“It will be okay, Stéphanos. You’re a good fighter. The crowds will like you,” Isaiah said. He’d been given greek-style armor, the same as Steve, as had all of Arcade’s gladiators, though none were sporting a helmet quite as memorable as Steve’s. 

“As will you.” Steve returned. “As will all of you, if we stick together and remember what we practiced.” If Steve could help, none of his comrades would have to die today. Steve knew gladiators were expensive, and wherever possible, they weren’t meant to die in the arena. The bloodshed usually came from prisoners thrown in there for the gladiators to slaughter.

Prisoners such as the ones being crammed into the cell next to them. Steve spared them a fleeting glance, not keen to look too closely into the eyes of those he was about to kill, but something caught his eye and steve turned to stare.

 _No, no, no._ There’d been a terrible mistake.

“Bucchae?”

“Stéphanos!” Bucky shouted back, blinking wide-eyed at him through the bars. Most of the prisoners were dressed in simple linen tunics or skirts, Bucky included. His was bolstered with pteruges, strips of leather to protect his hips and thighs, but his upper body—and his head—were completely bare. Steve crowded against the bars that separated them, growing frantic with nerves. Bucky hadn’t even been given a weapon and there was only about one shield per ten prisoners. 

“What are you doing here? How?” Hadn’t Arcade promised that if Steve fought well, Bucky would be safe.

“I don’t know. They rounded us up shortly after you left.” Bucky looked more resigned than scared, and that only fanned the flames of Steve’s anger. 

“Doctorae!” Steve turned from Bucky to bellow out beyond the cell to the corridors which ran around the circumference of the arena, where Doctorae was coordinating more of Arcade’s slaves. The man lifted his head at the sound of Steve’s voice, but made no move to approach him. “What is the meaning of this!? You promised Bucchae wouldn’t have to fight!”

“He won’t.” Doctorae finally flashed a wicked smile. “He just has to die.”

Steve gripped the bars of the cage and tried with all his might to rattle them, but they were well-built and refused to budge. 

“The Emperor is partial to the legend of Greek heroes, so Arcade heard. We’re re-enacting the _Song of Ilium_ for him, and we can’t have an Achilles without his Patroclus.” 

Steve blanched. Even after all this time, they weren’t free from their fate. Were they doomed to be haunted by those names for the rest of their unnaturally long lives? 

“You’ll pay for this,” Steve promised, spitting venom in his voice. 

Doctorae shook his head and smiled. “Arcade already did. Handsomely, I believe.” He cackled. “Hector’s going to have fun slaughtering him!”

Before Steve got the chance to shout back in retaliation, the cranking noise of the gates being opened stole his attention and the audience in the arena began to cheer with one thunderous voice. 

The prisoners were ushered out first, whilst Steve’s cell remained firmly locked. He battled his way to the front and gripped the bars, watching in horror as Bucky staggered out onto the bright golden sand. The spectators gave a roaring cheer as cells on the other side of the arena opened up and the resident gladiators from Capua’s Ludus drove out in their chariots. They encircled the prisoners corralling them into the center of the arena whilst the game maker gave a running commentary that was carried around the amphitheater by the cleverly designed acoustics. 

Achilles and his Myrmidons had abandoned the Greek army, who were being slaughtered by Hector’s troops. 

The gladiators began to cut through the huddle of prisoners who could only put up a minimal defense at best. Steve raged against the bars and he watched on in horror, eyes fixed on Bucky who’d managed to plant himself at the center of the group. He was trying his best to rally them, Steve could see. He had no weapon, nor any means of defense, but he was trying to marshal those who had. 

Around him the prisoners were cut down, and Bucky had managed to pick up a fallen shield to try and beat the gladiators back. Bitter anguish twisted in Steve’s gut as he realized Bucky was playing the part perfectly, the game maker's voice echoed around the arena with his narration: Brave Patroclus was fighting in Achilles' stead. Steve didn’t own the sounds that ripped from his throat, they were born of pure grief and anger. He knew what happened next, the cruel twist of fate that they were never able to outrun. 

Patroclus was no match for Hector. The Myrmidons and the Great Achilles would shudder when Hector struck Patroclus down. 

‘Hector’, in his chariot, began to encircle Bucky and the scant prisoners left alive in the center of the arena, but before he attacked, the gate to Steve’s cell was cranked open and he and Arcade’s fighters spilled out onto the sand. Steve supposed he was meant to watch his Patroclus die, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. Never again.

He ran, kicking up dust in his wake. He’d never run so hard nor so fast in his life, even Hermes with his winged sandals would have been hard-pressed to match Steve’s furious pace. But it still wasn’t quick enough. Steve saw ‘Hector’’s chariot come about and he raised his sword to strike Bucky down. In a desperate move, Steve threw his shield. The weight and force of the movement nearly wrenched his shoulder from its socket as the shield flew from his hand, hurled in a curving arc with divine accuracy. It met Hector’s sword with a resounding clang of iron against bronze. The sword was batted from Hector’s grip and Bucky remained unharmed.

The audience roared in a triumphant cheer and Steve heard the game maker falter with his narration, but Steve hardly cared. He didn’t let up his terrific pace, even though the muscles in his legs were screaming for him to slow down. He waited for Hector’s chariot to right its course and turn for a second pace, and hefted his spear above his shoulder, leaning back before launching it with all his deadly might. It struck Hector’s horse and the animal reeled and fell, dragging the chariot down with it and crashing in a splinter of broken wood. Hector dismounted, looking dazed and confused. This was supposed to have been a run of the mill execution for him, Steve supposed, grimly. With a little added flair to keep the crowds entertained. He was never meant to fight Steve. His chariot was probably supposed to whisk him back to safety after he’d killed Bucky in cold blood, and Steve was probably supposed to take out his vengeance on the next group of hapless prisoners. But today the rule book was being thrown out the window. Steve had cheated fate once, and today he’d do it again. 

He slowed and plucked a discarded shield from the floor before leaping straight for Hector like a lion with prey in its sights. Around them, Arcade’s men had started fighting off the rest of Capua’s gladiators, Steve could hear the resounding clangs and screams of battle, as well as the confused and muddled narration being invented by a harried sounding game maker. He grinned at ‘Hector’, wolfish, demonic, finally granted his wish to kill him again and make it count. 

The gladiator didn’t run. Steve didn’t know if he would have let the man go without a fight if he’d surrendered then or not. With anger boiling in his blood, Steve wasn’t sure he would have been able to let him go. He picked up his pace once more, skipping lightly as he crossed the sand with a quick-footed swiftness. The gladiator dropped into a fighting stance and drew a dagger from his belt. He held it confidently, but a dagger was no match for Steve, and no matter how well trained or well fought this gladiator thought he was, he was a paltry comparison for the real Hector, or for Achilles. 

Steve swatted at him with the shield, twirling to kick him painfully in the knee and sending it twisting out from under him. The man tried to right himself and thrust out with the dagger, but Steve danced away and used the edge of the shield to smash into the man’s wrist. He dropped the dagger, which fell into Steve’s waiting grip, and in one smooth move, Steve brought his hand up, and without hesitation, drove the dagger home into the man’s throat. The man stumbled back, gurgling blood that welled up in his mouth. He stayed upright for a few dizzy paces before he dropped to the blood-soaked sand like a dead weight. 

Riotous cheering erupted from all around the stadium, but Steve spared them no mind, his only thought was _Bucky_. He frantically scanned the arena and saw him, back to back with Isaiah; a shield and sword in his grip and a look of determination glinting from his silver-blue eyes. Steve felt a heady mixture of relief and love wash through him. 

Bucky and the prisoners had effectively beaten back Capua’s gladiators, forcing them to either retreat or die. The decision was made for them, however, when the game maker’s stuttering narration was cut off by the voice of Emperor Claudius himself.

“Great people of Capua!” He bellowed as the battle swiftly concluded, arms outstretched to calm the shouting of the crowd. If Steve strained his eyes, he could see the vague outline of Nero--Claudius’ adopted son and heir--on his left, and a tall man with dark hair and olive skin on his right. A man that looked startlingly familiar dressed in the unmistakable armor of a Roman legionnaire. “We have witnessed here today a great victory! Though Homer's tale of the mighty Achilles and his brave companion Patroclus may have met a tragic end, I say to you now that, through me, they have been given new life! You have witnessed the rebirth of a true hero, who will stop at nothing to save his beloved Patroclus from the clutches of Hades himself! Today, we honor them, so let your voices be heard!”

The crowds cheered and screamed with joy, and Steve’s heart sank like a stone as the repetitive chanting of “Achilles, Achilles!” filled up the entirety of the amphitheater. The icy chill of dread spread upward from the pit of his belly like fingers, wrapping around his heaving lungs in a tight fist until drawing a single breath against the crushing weight of it all was nearly impossible. Steve’s hands began to tremble, his fingers releasing the shield still caught in his grip. It clanged dully against the sand at his feet, but all Steve could hear was the chanting of the crowd, summoning the ghost of Achilles to rise from the grave he’d been left to rot in.

Tears blurred his vision, and the amphitheater began to tilt and spin. He couldn’t breathe, and the world was quickly closing in around him. Steve’s knees buckled as the sound of that accursed name swarmed around his head like a hive of angry bees, but before Steve could cave in on himself any further, he felt a warm weight wrap around his waist, pulling him closer to a body Steve could map out in his sleep by memory alone.

“Philtatos?” Bucky murmured into his ear, and the heat of his skin and the familiar shape of his lips pressing feather-light against Steve’s neck was quick to pull him back from the pit of despair he was falling head-first into. Steve turned his head, letting his gaze lock onto the blood-streaked features of Bucky’s face, and something within him settled slightly at the sight of those concerned eyes boring into his. 

“I am here,” Bucky said, and his hands were now framing the helmet Steve was still wearing, gently removing it and tossing it carelessly aside. Already, Steve felt as though he could breathe a little easier without it. “ _We_ are still here, my love. Can you hear me, Stéphanos? Death has not claimed us this day. We are still here-- _together_.”

“I hear you.” Steve shakily whispered, and for a moment, his attention was once again captured by the crowds, chatting the name that still loomed over his shoulder. A name Steve was certain he would never shake. “But I hear them too.”

Bucky's expression fell, and his grip on Steve’s face tightened, forcing Steve’s eyes to meet his once again.

“You are Stéphanos of Lemnos,” Bucky firmly reminded him, leaving no room for any doubts to settle in between his words. “Achilles is _dead_. Patroclus is _dead_. We are not those people, Philtatos, no matter what the crowds or Arcade, or even the Emperor himself have to say about it. Do not listen to them--”

“Ah, but he should,” Arcade’s voice cut in, carrying across the arena like a faint echo as he approached. It was then that Steve noticed Doctorae and the horde of armed guards that flanked them on either side, making escape next to impossible--if Steve was even in the right mindset to consider making a break for it. “Luckily for you, Grecian, the crowds have decided to spare the life of your concubine, which was hanging in the balance, though you may not have noticed.”

“What?” Steve choked out, and all at once, reality swept back in like a raging river, dousing Steve in its frigid waters. A glance up toward the Emperor revealed that Bucky had indeed been spared by Claudius, whose outstretched thumbs-up allowed him to live another day, as determined by the will of the crowds.

“I should have you both whipped for such defiance,” Arcade sneered, and in an instant, his hand was once again tangled into the long locks of Bucky’s hair, yanking Bucky back a step. “Making me look the fool in front of the fucking Emperor!”

Steve was quick to snap out of the fugue state he was in, taking a menacing step forward with teeth bared and his fists clenched. Doctorae and a few of Arcade’s guards, however, were ever quicker to stop Steve’s advance. Strong hands wrapped around his arms and shoulders, and in the next breath, the cold bite of those damned shackles was closing around his wrists and ankles, binding him.

Arcade didn’t even flinch, the bastard, but his grip on Bucky tightened as a greasy smile spread across his face. 

“Though, I had anticipated that you wouldn’t play by the rules, _Achilles,”_ Arcade continued, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s cheek that had Bucky squirming against his hold, trying to pull away, and Steve saw red. “Your little display of heroics worked out in my favor, and so, I have graciously decided not to flay your little plaything alive. But as I've said before, disobedience comes with consequences, and you must be punished for what you’ve done.”

Steve’s stomach twisted around itself. 

“I think a night in the stocks will do for the likes of him, as well as twenty lashes to atone for your...lack of judgment. Perhaps then you’ll submit yourself to me, slave. If not, I have other, more _persuasive_ means to sway your obedience.”


	16. Interlude II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter by JJK♡♡

Steve wasn’t surprised Fury had kept Danvers a secret, the man had more secrets than Harpocrates. It was one of the reasons Steve and Bucky had refused to stick around and work for SHIELD. He couldn’t stand the idea of working for someone who compartmentalized everything and moved around his ‘team’ like pieces on a chessboard. But Danvers was useful, she tracked down Doctor Strange’s last known location and managed to rescue Nebula, whose ship had stalled somewhere in the deep reaches of space as she tried to get home from Titan. Strange was dust, so were the rest of the Guardians. Apparently Strange had freely handed over the time stone after using it to glimpse into 14 million possible futures. There was one where they won, Nebula relayed, but Doctor Strange couldn’t tell them how it happened. 

“Cryptic bastard,” Thor muttered. 

“That means we have a chance.” Steve clung to that chance as they planned for their attack on the Garden. 

He clung to that chance as Rocket’s spaceship hurtled them through hyper-jump points, speeding through galaxies that Steve had never even dreamed of. He marveled at the sight of an alien planet hanging orb-like before them, swirling with colors of bright greens, yellows, and blues. How had he lived so long and never known there were civilizations spread out across the universe? How was he witnessing it now without Bucky by his side? 

“No satellites, no ships, no armies, no ground defenses of any kind. It's just him.” Danvers relayed after her recon run. 

“And that's enough,” Nebula commented bitterly. 

Steve didn’t know what history lay between Nebula and Thanos, but he recognized the virulence and anger in her eyes. Whatever Thanos had done to her, he was about to pay dearly for it. 

The planet was beautiful, made-up of endless rolling hills filled with lush vegetation and the rosy glow of an approaching sunset cast everything in a warm golden light. It reminded Steve of Lemos, even the little stone hut looked familiar. But there were no herds of sheep or goats grazing on the slopes nearby, and on their approach, Steve had seen no signs of nearby towns or any other inhabitants on the planet. Some paradise, he scoffed. What was Elysium without anyone to share it with? 

Thanos looked pathetic when they found him. Danvers blasted through the roof and secured him in a chokehold whilst the Hulk busted through the front door in reinforced armor. He grabbed Thanos’ arm and Thor sliced cleanly through it with his axe to prevent Thanos from even attempting to use the gauntlet against them. They worked together like a well-oiled machine, and Steve couldn’t help but feel anguished over how easy it was to subdue the Titan. If Steve had stuck around with SHIELD and they’d worked as a team, could they have stopped him before he snapped away half the universe?

Rocket kicked over the gauntlet and Steve stared at the empty sockets where the lambent stones should have sat. 

“Where are they?” he demanded. 

“The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation.” Thanos sneered at them. 

“You murdered trillions!” Bruce raged, pushing Thanos to the ground. 

“You should be grateful—” A hard punch to the jaw was quick to cut him off, but it was clear the rage swirling within Bruce wasn't yet satisfied. 

“Where are the stones?” Natasha yelled, quickly losing her tightly controlled grip on her emotions. Steve seethed silently behind her, fuming on the spot. 

“Gone. Reduced to atoms.” Thanos sounded smug. 

“You used them two days ago!” Bruce protested.

“I used the stones to destroy the stones. It nearly killed me. But the work is done. It always will be.” Thanos pushed himself up, gloating. “I am... inevitable.”

“ARGH!” Nebula raged through them all, drawing a pair of swords from the holsters crossed across her back. She moved lightning quick, and Steve wasn’t sure he would have been able to stop her even if he’d wanted to; but the last thing he wanted to do was get between her and her revenge. She flew across the small space of the room and drew her twin blades through the air with a metallic ring. Thanos’ limp body fell back and his head rolled across the floor. 

“What– _what did you do?”_ Rocket asked, sounding aghast.

“Now we’ll never find the stones! Tear the place apart, he has to have been lying—” Rhodey spluttered. 

“My father is many things. A liar is not one of them.” Nebula stood up and stared down at Thanos’ body. “The stones are gone.” She wiped a splatter of blood from her face and stalked from the hut.

“Gone?” Natasha turned to Steve and blinked. 

No, they couldn’t be gone. Steve stumbled backward from the hut and fell to his knees in the dirt. 

“There must be something we can do.” Natasha followed Steve out of the hut and stood behind his shoulder. “There  _ has  _ to be.”

Steve forced himself to lift his eyes. He saw Nebula stalking back towards the ship, and let his eyes glaze over the rolling fields and the alien blue sky. His heart felt heavy, like a lead weight that threatened to drag him down and never let him stand back up. 

“Without the stones,” Steve trailed off, he wasn’t ready to give up. He would never give up on Bucky, but he couldn’t see where to go next. 

“Strange said there was a chance. One future where we won. He clearly thought he was putting us on the right track when he handed over the time stone.” Natasha rationalized. 

The time stone. Steve shook his head. What he wouldn’t give to have the time stone, to turn back time and stop any of this from happening.

“We’ll figure something out. We have to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's all a little different to Endgame... 😉 and from here is where we really diverge from canon hopefully you'll like it!


	17. Rome- Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed chapter!🙈👀

(Capua, Rome. Circa 54 AD)

If Steve knew one thing for certain, it was that Arcade was a man of his word, and as he’d come to find later on, he was ambitious and narcissistic on a level that even Agamemnon at his absolute worst couldn’t reach. Having inherited this Ludus from his late father, Steve supposed that Arcade knew better than anyone that the crowd determined who rose and fell within the Roman empire, and that if he ever wanted to firmly plant himself within the senate, he needed to gain the love of the people first, and the emperor’s patronage would come naturally afterward.

With power came great privilege, and Arcade was greedy for every scrap of influence he could gain, and because the universe had cursed them with unending tragedy for the foreseeable future, Arcade now possessed two legendary immortals to fight in his name. Thankfully, Arcade hadn’t yet discovered the rare gems he’d actually come to possess within Bucky and Steve, but though their secret remained safe, they soon discovered that even the smallest of victories came with a hefty price to pay. 

Steve’s antics in the arena ended up costing him dearly, as he knew they would, but to his everlasting horror, it was Bucky that was made to give a pound of flesh as recompense for Steve’s disobedience. Quite literally, as it turned out. The very moment they’d arrived back at the Ludus, Arcade had strung Bucky up by his arms in the middle of the practice arena, and with armed guards surrounding him and the cold bite of a sword pressed firmly to the hollow of his throat, Steve was made to watch as Bucky took the brunt of the punishment Doctorae dished out on Arcade’s behalf, receiving twenty lashes with a scourge that bit deep into the flesh of his back and sides, painting jagged lines across his body with the deep crimson of his own blood. 

Arcade followed through with his threat to Steve without even blinking, and when the whip kissed the skin of Bucky’s back, again and again, dragging up those blood-curdling screams to the surface that shattered Steve’s very soul into jagged shards, Arcade would smile down at him and say, “Look, Achilles. See what your disobedience has earned you.”

Arcade reveled in the tears that slid down Steve’s cheeks when Bucky was locked in the stocks afterward, given no respite despite his injuries, but of course, Arcade’s punishment didn’t end there. The men had lost their ration of food for the evening, and Steve was made to sleep in his cell alone while Bucky suffered in the stocks from dusk until dawn. But as Steve expected, sleep never came for either of them that night.

The following morning, Bucky was released and taken to the Ludi physician for the injuries that Bucky’s overtaxed and exhausted body failed to heal overnight. Steve came to realize early on that major bodily harm took time and energy to heal from, especially if the wounds hadn’t actually killed them, and though the scourging was brutal, Bucky was still very much alive by the time Doctorae had finished.

Bucky, being as gracious and forgiving as Steve knew him to be, wasn’t nearly as upset with Steve as Steve was with himself. If anything, the anger Bucky felt, as with most of the men they'd fought beside, was directed solely at Arcade. Steve, despite Bucky’s insistence otherwise, vowed to never forgive himself for the pain his recklessness had caused his beloved. His actions kept Bucky alive and their secret remained safe, but the cost was more than he could bear.

It took days until Bucky was deemed fit enough to send back to the cell he shared with Steve, his back wrapped with thick bandages he didn’t need, and each second that Steve spent without Bucky tucked into the protective circle of his arms felt like a lifetime spent in pain and misery. He nearly crushed his beloved with the force of his embrace when Bucky was finally shoved into his cell by the uncaring hands of the guard who’d held his sword to Steve’s throat just three days before. 

Steve swore he would kill him for that before their time here came to a close, and they would all know soon enough that Steve himself was a man of his word, bound by stubborn will alone to dismantle this Ludus brick by brick until not even dust remained. But although molten rage coursed through his veins like a river of fire, Steve had to be cautious. He couldn’t risk Bucky like that again, but regardless of the risks, now more than ever, thoughts of escape danced within Steve’s mind.

So he bottled up that anger like oil for a lantern, hid it behind a mask of false obedience, and silently planned Arcade’s downfall. 

Another month slowly passed them by like sand in an hourglass, slipping through the cracks in Steve's blood-soaked fingers. Soon enough, Steve was set to fight again in the arena to appease the demand of the crowds, but since Arcade was dead-set on exploiting the Bucky-shaped chink in Steve’s armor to force him to perform like a good little soldier, he too was set to battle Capua’s best in the area. This time, Bucky would be allowed a sword and a shield to defend himself, and even though his armor would be the same leather skirt they’d sent him out in last time, Steve found himself feeling a little more optimistic about their chances, despite how outnumbered they’d be. However, that optimism vanished like smoke in the wind when Arcade, staying true to his insidious nature, bound them together with a short length of chain that barely allowed them to move, let alone fight.

**Image** : Gladiator Bucky | **art by** : [foxybucky](https://twitter.com/foxybucky)

With their legs chained together, Bucky and Steve faced the best of Capua’s gladiators, moving as one in a blur of blood-stained iron. The attack was unrelenting and brutal, and had Steve and Bucky not spent a millennium fighting side by side and learning how each other moved, they would have been overwhelmed and cut down. But they knew each other’s bodies perhaps better than their own, and Steve could predict Bucky’s movements, adapting his style to fight seamlessly beside Bucky to push the gladiators back. 

It was a thrilling fight, Steve’s blood was pumping and the crowds were delighted by the spectacle. Bucky fought better than he ever had before. He seemed more determined than ever to hold his own, and all of the training in the Ludus seemed to have taken root within him. He countered the gladiators’ attacks with a ferocity that matched Steve’s. When Steve parried high, Bucky thrust low, Steve used his shield to block blows from their left and Bucky twirled behind him to cover strikes from their rear. They moved in tandem, anticipating each other's thoughts and moves, fighting like it was an elaborately choreographed dance. No matter how hard Capua’s finest tried, they couldn’t get the better of Steve and Bucky, not when they were so in sync. 

Not even the chain could encumber them. When a gladiator charged head-on, Steve and Bucky dove away from each other, rolling to the floor and pulling their chain taut to trip their opponent, and using their momentum to spring back up and finish him off. They didn’t kill, if at all possible—but the crowd didn’t care. When only Steve and Bucky were left standing with the gladiators sprawled unconscious and injured around them, they roared with thundering cheers.

_“ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!”_

“And Patroclus.” Steve bent to whisper in Bucky’s ear.

That night their compliance was rewarded. They were allowed to bathe together, even given a few moments of privacy which didn’t go unwasted, before they were thrown back in the cell and left to the darkness in peace. The threat remained, though, and Steve had not forgotten the sight of Bucky’s back ripped raw by the whip. If he complied and fought to bring glory to Arcade, then Bucky would be spared and Steve would be rewarded. Though it frustrated him to play along, Steve realized he didn’t have a choice. Even if they could escape the Ludus, they couldn’t leave Capua just yet—not whilst the dreams still plagued them.

The longer they spent with Arcade, the more frequent and vivid the dreams grew, until Steve was certain that the man he’d spotted in the arena, seated beside Nero, was the man from their dreams. He kept a close eye out at future games, but though he didn’t spot the man again, the details he saw in the dreams matched what little he saw of Capua when they were dragged from the Ludus for the games. The games were growing more frequent too. Normally a gladiator would expect to fight only a handful of times per year, but ‘Achilles’ was in high demand, and soon, no gladiator games were complete without his presence. And as Achilles' popularity grew, Arcade’s star ascended. 

Politicians and senators began to tour the Ludus, and Arcade soon began to throw lavish dinner parties to network and sow seeds of his own power. More often than not, Steve found himself being trotted out like a showhorse, oiled until his skin glistened, dressed in his greek armor, and forced to stand like a living statue as Rome’s most powerful men and women fawned over him. When that happened, he knew that Doctorae was standing by with Bucky in the stocks, ready and willing to dole out punishment for any infractions or perceived faults Arcade found in Steve’s behavior. 

It was at one such dinner party, shortly after Nero’s acclamation brought on by his step-father’s untimely death, and the lavish games which had followed to cement his status as Emperor, that Steve had finally come face-to-face with the man from their dreams. Though, nothing could have prepared Steve for how this long-awaited meeting would actually play out in the end.

Steve was positioned in the atrium, as he usually was when affairs of this magnitude took place, standing statuesque and still, like living art on display; his oiled skin glistening brighter than the blanket of stars in the night sky above. Previous to their guest arriving, Arcade had warned Steve that for this particular occasion, disobedience of any kind would be met with a swift blade to the belly. Bucky’s belly, to be exact. Though, Steve had already expected as much from the likes of Arcade. He knew what was at stake, especially when such a high-profile guest–with firm ties to the emperor, no less–was due to break bread with the master of the house. No doubt to gain the patronage of the emperor later on, when word of Arcade’s accolades was dutifully spread from Legatus Broccaus Rumlow–the Roman General they were soon to entertain–to Emperor Nero himself. 

If Arcade could successfully pull this off, his appointment to the senate was almost a guarantee.

Doctorae, scourge in hand, had whisked Bucky away to the stocks as soon as the announcement had been made, but Steve didn’t need to be reminded of what was expected of him when Arcade pulled such a spineless move. It was tasteless and cruel, dangling his beloved before him like a deer before a starving lion, but damn if it didn’t work every time Arcade used Bucky against him. Even some of the men, Doctorae included–though he’d never state as much outright when keen ears were always listening–had taken offense to Arcade’s brash tactics with Steve. 

It was sometimes difficult to remember that his brothers-in-arms were slaves to Arcade, just as Steve and Bucky were, and that they too had wives and children at home that they were missing; most of whom they’d never see again. Steve and Bucky’s outward display of love was a heavy reminder to them all, and though Arcade would say otherwise, they were starting to grow restless and angry with him. Steve knew that, should this continue, it wouldn’t be long before Arcade had an uprising on his hands. Steve was counting on it.

The dinner party was in full swing by the time the Legatus arrived, and like a dog awaiting its master’s return, Arcade’s head eagerly snapped to the side to catch a glimpse of him; the dull conversation he’d been holding with the daft blonde at his side utterly abandoned in an instant.

“Ah, Legatus! So glad you could make it!” Arcade greeted with a beaming smile, gliding across the room with his arms outstretched. Steve could just barely make out the General’s features from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t need to turn his head to know that the man in the doorway looked achingly familiar to him. 

“Yes, well, I couldn’t have passed up the opportunity to witness the might of Capua’s new champion for myself, now could I?” The Legatus dismissed with a wave of his hand; his searching gaze now landing squarely on Steve. 

With Steve’s presence set as the centerpiece for these elaborate affairs, the palpable weight of eyes hungrily roving over his exposed skin was a near-constant sensation, but the stare the Legatus was leveling him with from across the atrium was entirely different in nature.

It wasn’t a look of blind lust, or some sort of envy born out of ignorance–because what sort of fool would wish the life of a gladiator upon themselves? If he were honest, Steve couldn’t quite place the emotion that lingered behind the Legatus’ eyes, but by the way his skin began to crawl as the man approached him, abandoning Arcade for what he truly came here for, Steve knew in his heart that it wasn’t something he wanted to be personally acquainted with.

“Y-yes, of course.” Arcade visibly faltered for a moment as he watched the Legatus approach Steve with purposeful steps, the smile on his face melting into a scorned scowl for a fraction of a second. “He is quite the spectacle, is he not?”

Arcade caught up to him with hurried steps just as the Legatus rounded on Steve, now staring him dead in the face, and once their eyes met, Steve instantly knew that this was the man they’d been dreaming of. Every darkened and blurry feature they’d seen in their dreams had now coalesced into the image of the man that stood before Steve, and it was like every bit of heartache they’d endured to get to this moment had dissolved into this profound sense of relief.

They’d left their home on Lemnos to find this man, and now they have. This legionnaire had risen through the ranks since his resurrection, assuming the title of Legatus Legionis under Nero’s new rule, no doubt for the heroic tales of bravery he’d brought home from Silures. But at that moment, none of it mattered, because this man was one of them. An immortal.

“Quite,” the Legatus answered after a moment, eyes boring into Steve’s with an unshakable sense of understanding. Steve often wondered if the man from their dreams was experiencing the same thing they were. Dreaming of two men he’d never laid eyes on before. With one look, Steve had his answer. 

If Arcade noticed the unspoken words passing between them, he didn’t acknowledge it, but then again Arcade would never outwardly admit that a man he’d deemed was below him had effectively stolen the attention of his most prized guest. Though, judging from the stern lines of malcontent now etched across his face, there was no doubt in Steve’s mind that he was thinking just that.

“So, this is the mighty Achilles the people have been praising so greatly, hm?” The Legatus darkly murmured as he began to circle Steve, appraising him like a fine cut of beef at the market. “A living God of war, reborn to fight for the glory of Rome.”

He chuckled mirthlessly, running his fingertips down the breastplate of Steve’s armor.

“What a rare find you’ve stumbled upon, Caius. Your father would’ve been delighted to have had such a man.”

Arcade’s expression soured at the mention of his father, but his grimace smoothed out into a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes when the Legatus finally turned his attention toward him.

“He has use to me, yes, just as a beast of the field has its purpose to a farmer.” Arcade flippantly replied, downplaying Steve’s importance in an attempt to refocus the Legatus' attention on his own political merits. It was pathetic, even for a weasel of a man like Arcade.

The Legatus hummed in consideration, glancing back at Steve.

“He’s part of a set, is he not? Where is the other one?”

Arcade’s brow furrowed with feigned confusion. “What other do you speak of?”

“The one he fights for, of course.” The Legatus answered, his gaze still locked on Steve. “I assume you still have him, so where is Patroclus?” 

Steve stared at the General, trying to puzzle out the expression the other man wore. There was recognition, yes, of that Steve was certain, but rather than the relief Steve felt at encountering another immortal like himself the man seemed...angry? Disgusted? Steve couldn’t work it out. Was he disgusted at how Arcade was parading Steve around? Had he worked out who Steve really was? Was he disgusted to have seen him fall so low? Whatever the source of his anger, his interest in Bucky sounded far from innocent and it rankled Steve. 

“He resides in the Ludus, of course. With the other…Gladiators.” Arcade stumbled over the last word, clearly loath to describe Bucky as a gladiator. “Why the interest, Legatus?” Arcade’s tone turned sickly sweet and Steve’s stomach churned. He hadn’t forgotten the very first promise Arcade made him, or the insinuations he’d made about Bucky being better suited to the pleasure houses rather than the amphitheater. “I’m sure we could arrange for a _visitation_ if that is your desire.”

The general's expression soured and he turned on Arcade with a sneer. 

“Why on earth would I desire that, Caius?” 

Arcade shrank back at his tone, but Steve couldn’t delight in Arcade’s cowering, he was far too concerned about Bucky, and why this man, Broccaus—Steve latched on to his name—was so interested in him. 

“It’s poetic, almost, how far Achilles is willing to go for his Patroclus. Loyal to a fault, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes. I suppose I would.” Arcade agreed quickly, trying to win back the General’s favor and smooth over his earlier misstep. 

“And someone that loyal to another man, will never be loyal to Rome.”

Steve worked hard to keep his breathing steady and even, trying hard not to betray the unease that began to swirl in the pit of his stomach. 

“The Emperor is naturally distrustful. Achilles has grown very popular. _Too_ popular, one might say.” 

Steve tore his eyes away from the Legatus' look of disdain and found Arcade blanched white with panic. 

“Too popular?” He asked, failing to keep the trembling from his voice. 

“A man who can command the crowd holds power. Perhaps it is time to remind the crowd where true power lies. It is time for the legend of Achilles to be put to rest, once and for all. After all, their story does end in tragedy.” the Legatus turned back to Steve with hatred blazing in his darkened eyes. “What’s _dead_ should stay _buried_.” He spoke directly to Steve and Steve felt his heart stutter to a halt in his chest. There was no mistaking the revulsion in his voice. He may have been an immortal like Steve and Bucky, but unlike them, he hadn’t made peace with his gift. He seemed to hate Steve for it. 

“Nero will be commissioning a fight to celebrate the festival of Mars. It will be fitting, don’t you think—to cut down this false god of war? To end their story the way the gods intended? Remind the people of Rome what purpose a gladiator serves?”

Steve stared at the General with open disbelief. Some part of Bucky’s optimism must have rubbed off on him over the years because Steve so desperately wanted to believe it was a trick, a ploy to free Steve and Bucky from the Ludus. But unless the man was an exceptionally skilled liar, he was calling for them to be executed in the arena. The man they’d rushed to the aid of, whom Bucky’s tender heart had gone out to, the man they traded everything to find...wanted them dead. 

Steve’s knees threatened to give out under the weight of that reality, and he felt bile rise in his stomach. It was only sheer will power, and the knowledge of what awaited Bucky if he’d failed, that kept Steve standing upright. He strained against the instinct to lunge at the Legatus there and then and rend him limb from limb, to grab a serving platter and hurl it at Arcade before beating the life out of him. 

“Come, let us plan a battle for the ages. If the emperor is impressed, I’ll see to it that you are recompensed. There could be a vacant seat on senate very soon,” The Legatus inclined his head away from Steve and Arcade practically fell over himself to follow. 

Steve watched them go with blood boiling in his veins. The one thing he’d still struggled to learn in the long course of his lifetime was restraint. But acting rashly now would cost Steve more than he could bear to lose. If there was a time in his life to be patient and to plan, it was now. The men in the Ludus were just waiting for the opportunity to revolt, Steve could only hope they’d join him now before Arcade and the General could put their plan into motion. 


	18. Rome- Part Five

Bucky thought he preferred an outright whipping compared to this: standing in the stocks, weary with exhaustion, keeping his belly taut away from the blade held poised against it. He didn’t fear death, knowing as he did that the underworld would just spew him right back out, but he did fear pain. And if Doctorae decided to slice Bucky open from navel to throat, it would hurt like hell. And if the wound didn’t kill him, sometimes the healing that came after hurt even more.

The sky grew dark. It was cloudless and cold out in the stocks positioned in the training ring. Bucky began to shiver as the cold rattled his teeth and his bones. Sometimes Arcade’s dinner parties lasted until dawn and Bucky didn’t relish the idea of standing out in the stocks all night. He knew Steve was suffering too, displayed like a prized bull, a centerpiece for the party. Knew he must be using every single ounce of self-control not to lash out and kill everyone at those parties. Knew it was only for Bucky’s sake that he didn’t. 

It was well past midnight when Doctorae finally released Bucky from the stocks and sent him stumbling back to his cell. Steve was there already, sitting on the bed with his head bowed. His skin gleamed in the glow from Doctorae’s torch, still slick with the oil that had been rubbed into his muscles so they would shine and glisten just like his bronze armor. He made quite the sight, blonde hair braided back from his temples, and falling down his back, but his expression was sour and when he glanced Bucky saw there were tears beading in the corners of his eyes.

“Stéphanos?” Bucky rushed to Steve’s side as their cell door was shut and bolted behind him. Doctorae retreated with the torch, plunging them back into darkness, but Bucky’s eyes quickly adjusted. He cupped his hands around Steve’s jaw and hugged him close. “What is it, my love?” he whispered into the dark.

It took a while for Steve to speak. His breath shuddered through him and for a moment Bucky thought he was crying before he realized it was anger bristling through Steve that was making him tremble.

“I met the man we followed here, tonight,” he said and gripped Bucky close.

“He’s here? I knew it,” Bucky whispered back, burrowing close against Steve’s chest and drawing warmth from him. He’d seen glimpses recently that looked awfully familiar. His heart ticked up, but Steve’s obvious anger made him pause. 

“We should never have left Lemnos,” Steve muttered with bitterness in his tone.

“What? Why, what happened?” Bucky drew back and scrutinized Steve’s face.

“We have to get out of here, Bucchae, we have to leave before the next games. He plans to kill us.”

“Kill us?” Bucky didn’t understand. “I don’t understand.”

“I don't either. His immortality has made him bitter, he seemed to despise us, philtatos. He’s planning something for the Festival of Mars.”

“But if he knows us, then he knows we cannot die?”

Steve shook his head. His brow was furrowed and his expression one of pure pain.

“I don’t know what he knows. He seemed confident that we could be killed. He must know something we do not.”

Bucky gripped tight to Steve’s arms. No, no, no. They couldn’t die now. Not here, not like this. 

“No.” He trembled.

“I won’t let him harm you,” Steve promised. He pressed a kiss to Bucky’s cheeks, one by one. “We’ll escape before he has the chance.”

“You have a plan?”

Steve nodded.

“But we’ll need help. And we’re taking everyone with us. I won’t let Arcade harm another soul in this Ludus.”

Bucky nodded at that, taking both of Steve’s hands in his. He wouldn't have expected anything less from Steve, whose heart was a thousand times bigger than Rome's ever-expanding empire. They haven't known these men–their newfound brothers-in-arms, really–for very long, and admittedly, most of them were criminals that had offended Rome in one way or another, but to Steve–and Bucky as well–they were still deserving of a life spent free from the tyranny of Rome. 

No man should have to live and die by the sword in such a way, fighting and dying solely for the crowd's entertainment and nothing more. To Rome, these men were no longer human, but living, breathing extensions of blood-slicked iron and violence. It was dehumanizing to be seen in such a way. To have that yoke set upon their shoulders. 

Steve knew that feeling better than anyone, so much so that Bucky wouldn't dare challenge his decision on this. So quite simply, either they were leaving this Ludus with every person Arcade had enslaved in his quest for power, or they weren’t leaving this place at all. 

"What of Isaiah's wife?" Bucky reminded Steve. "We promised him we would search for her, Philtatos. He will not leave Rome without her." 

Steve sighed, "I know. We cannot do this without him, but we cannot abandon her to a fate worse than death as well." 

"But my love, what can we do? She could be halfway across the empire by now if she's even still alive. We have no way of knowing where she went or what master she now serves." Bucky countered, fearing the worst. 

It was no secret that Isaiah was a good and faithful man, skilled with words as well as the blade of a sword. By the time their first month of captivity had passed, Isaiah had already secured the friendship of at least a dozen of Arcade’s most experienced fighters. They would rally behind him if he followed Steve’s cause.

However, even if they did gain the support of the men, there was still the unspoken promise of retaliation should their little uprising ultimately fail. Rome was not kind to those accused of treason, and the endless rows of crucified men, women, and even children could attest to how shift and merciless the emperor would be to the likes of them. 

Nero was a paranoid, distrustful, loathsome creature that wouldn't hesitate to make an example out of Steve, should he get his hands on him. And that, above all else, terrified Bucky more than whatever fate their immortal bother would unleash upon them. 

"I will talk with him," Steve murmured, pressing a kiss to the crown of Bucky’s head. "Isaiah is a good man, and he is not beyond reason when it pertains to the greater good. I promised him that we would help him find his wife, and I will uphold that vow to my dying breath. He knows this. He will come to our aid." 

“I know he will.” Bucky squeezed Steve’s hands in his.

“I just hope it works. I couldn’t bear the thought of leading these men to their deaths.”

Bucky extracted a hand and reached up to brush Steve’s hair back behind his ear, then let his hand linger, cradling his jaw. “The men in here all know they are going to their deaths, one way or another.” Bucky tried to reassure him. “The dream of freedom, buying or earning your way out. It’s just a dream for most. They would rather die as free men, or fighting to be, than die as slaves. I am certain of it.”

Steve twisted his head to plant a kiss against Bucky’s palm. “I hope you’re right.”

He pulled Bucky onto the small pallet bed and they lay together, cradling each other in the dark. 

“We’ll need more than the other gladiators on our side if this is going to work,” Steve whispered after a while. His voice hushed too quietly for anyone else to hear, whispered directly against Bucky’s ear. He’d taken to carding his hands through Bucky’s hair and Bucky had been lulled half to sleep, but of course, Steve’s mind was still churning. Once it latched onto something, there was no stopping it. 

“Who?”

“Someone from his household staff, we need access only the servants would have.”

Bucky hummed in thought. The gladiators never had much direct contact with Arcade’s servants, but they were always there, flitting around the peripheries of the Ludus, making sure everything ran smoothly. Even a gladiator school needed to be cleaned and maintained. 

“The girl I’ve seen you speaking to,” Steve continued. “The one teaching you Iberian.” Bucky glanced up. His eyes were fogged with sleep and they struggled to see Steve through the dark of their cell, but he didn’t need to see Steve’s face to know it had a smirk plastered across it. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed?”

“You’re normally oblivious,” Bucky mumbled back, before returning to rest his head on the ample pillow of Steve’s chest. Steve hummed and resumed carding his hand through Bucky’s hair. 

“Could you persuade her to help?”

Bucky had grown close to a few of Arcade’s servants—slaves, actually, it wasn’t like they had a choice in the matter—during their stay in the Ludus. He soaked up languages with a fervor, and when he heard them speaking a few words of a language he didn’t recognize, he’d endeavored to learn it from them. They traded whispers in the fringes of the Ludus when the proper gladiators were busy training, and stole snatches of conversation when the women were sent in to clean and bathe Bucky’s wounds after Arcade had found fault with Steve and taken his anger out on Bucky. 

There was one woman in particular, Aunia, who reminded Bucky so strongly of Briseis that it made his heart ache every time he spoke to her. She’d been stolen from Hispania and sold into Arcade’s service, and, like most of the servants in Arcade’s household, she hated him just as much as the Gladiators, but she was powerless to act. 

“How do you bear it, Bucchae?” she’d asked in whispered breaths as she’d brought him a pail of water to wash his back after the last time Doctorae had lashed him with a scourge. “I think I’d rather die.”

“No.” Bucky had held her gaze and despite his pain, despite the deep agony that flared across his back as his body battled between letting him bleed out, die and ‘reset’, or struggle to heal, Bucky forced himself to give her an encouraging smile. Sometimes, he thought the healing might hurt more than the original injuries had. “There is always something to live for.”

“This isn’t living,” she’d returned with a bitter shake of her head. 

“Empires rise and fall. Men like Arcade don’t stay in power forever.”

“Careful,” she whispered back, soaking a cloth in the water and lifting it to his back. Bucky had tensed in anticipation of the sting it would cause. “That sounds treasonous.” 

“Are you going to turn me in?” he’d hissed through clenched teeth as she started to scrub his wounds clean. It wasn’t strictly speaking necessary, not medically; Bucky’s skin would heal on its own, in time and it would be less painful to let heal on its own accord. But he grit his teeth and bore the pain that was worth keeping their true nature a secret. 

“I have not decided,” she replied, but she was smiling as she spoke. 

So far, she hadn’t breathed a word of the treachery Bucky dared to voice out loud, and she always had a smile for him when they crossed paths. But dreaming of change and enacting it were two very different things. Her position in Arcade’s house might be wretched, but they both knew things could be far, far worse. Bucky wouldn’t blame her if she wanted no part in their plan. 

“I will talk to her,” Bucky promised.

“Thank you.” Steve pressed a kiss against Bucky’s temple and then snuggled closer to finally drift off to sleep. He kept his fingers moving through Bucky’s hair, but this time sleep eluded Bucky. 

His mind recalled flashes of the man from their dreams, the man they’d given up paradise for, the man who apparently wanted them dead. Bucky didn’t understand what would motivate someone towards such hatred and bitterness, or why that animosity was directed at them; as if Steve and Bucky were the ones responsible for the fate that now rested upon his shoulders when they were victims of these bizarre circumstances as well.

A thousand years or so had passed since Bucky was first slain on the beaches of Troy, and he was still no closer to unraveling the mystery of this curse than he was back then. He didn’t know why the Underworld had mercilessly spat him back out, or why Steve had been chosen to accompany him on his journey through time as a Revenant. He didn’t know why it kept happening, over and over, nor did he know who long their curse would last. Any day could be the moment when their wounds refused to heal and the cruel hands of Hades himself grabbed hold of them to drag them under. But on that same note, they may never be able to truly die, left to linger on this earth until time itself passed away. Unless this man was to be believed and there was some secret he’d discovered, the key to killing them off once and for all. 

Bucky shifted restlessly at that, trying to push the thought from his head, but the more he tried to chase the bitterness away, the longer it clung to the edges of his mind; lingering in shadow like a malevolent spirit.

Anger sparked in his heart as the thought festered, flowing around his bones like molten iron and burning him down to ash from the inside out. It wasn’t lost on Bucky that seeking out this man was ultimately _his_ doing. Steve had wanted to stay on Lemnos, wanted to keep the little slice of Elysium they’d carved out for themselves when heaven wanted no part of them. Bucky had begged Steve to listen to him, to leave their home and all that they’d held dear to help a man they’d never met but, as most of Bucky’s good intentions ultimately did, it had backfired on them.

Now they were trapped in an iron cage, staring down an unknown fate at the hands of someone they once considered a brother in spirit. Bucky didn’t know what this man had in store for them, what weapon he possessed that made him believe he could rid the world of their presence forever when everything else had failed, and it terrified him down to the very marrow of his bones. 

Would it hurt? Would their deaths be quick? If their plan failed and Arcade won the day, he doubted they’d be afforded such leniency. Bucky had witnessed the sadistic justice of Rome with his own eyes on more than one occasion, and he knew that, should they be thwarted, they’d all be hanging by their wrists from a wooden cross by day’s end; held in place by a couple of nine-inch nails. By now, Bucky was accustomed to pain, but he still feared it, still shied away from it as any sane person would, and if could avoid such a horrid fate, he’d do whatever he had to to make that happen.

But that, of course, all started with Aunia. If Bucky could convince her to pocket the keys to the house and unlock a few doors for them, then they just might be able to pull this off without losing their lives again. Aunia was one of Arcade’s head servants, given privilege none of the others had. It would not be difficult for her to gain access to the keys.

He hoped, perhaps somewhat against hope, that she would find it in her heart to come to their aid.

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

The next morning saw them all back out on the practice field, sparring against each other to prepare for the festival in a few weeks time. Arcade was watching from the balcony, servants in collars looking positively miserable at his side as they stood motionless under the sweltering heat of the Roman sun. As promised, Steve was deep in battle with Isaiah, trading hushed whispers of conspiracy in between bruising blows; putting on a bit of a show for Arcade, who was yet none the wiser about their plan to stick a blade in between his ribs before the festival even took place. 

Most of the gladiators were out on the sand, either training with the pells or squaring off against their brethren, but Bucky, however, was not among them. Doctorae, as ordered by Arcade, had given him the arduous task of cleaning up the cells and the bathhouse, humiliating him as penance for something Steve had done or said that Bucky—or even Steve, for that matter—wasn’t privy to.

Aunia and a few of the house servants were with him today, scrubbing at the decorative mosaic tiles of the bathhouse with a rag that was nearly falling apart in his hand. The work was hard, because of course it was, but today, Bucky didn’t mind it all that much. Sure, his knees would ache and his back would throb, but it also put him in close quarters with the one person he desperately needed to talk to.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been given such a task and no one was surprised to see him. Aunia gave him a commiserating smile and nudged the bucket of water in his direction. He thanked her in her native language, which transformed her expression into one of delight. But he couldn't conjure the conversation that usually flowed between them, not whilst he worried over trying to phrase what he had to ask of her. It was no small favor. 

“What’s with you today?” she asked in a whisper as they scrubbed the dirt from between the titles. They were working in a corner of the bathhouse, set apart from the other servants. Bucky glanced around, now was the best opportunity he was ever going to get. 

“Arcade is plotting to kill Stéphanos,” Bucky whispered back. “Achilles,” he clarified when Aunia looked confused. “And myself.”

“The Feast of Mars,” she exhaled. “I heard him talking last night. He said he was planning something ‘memorable’.” Her expression turned into one of horror. 

“An execution that will earn him a seat in the Senate.” Bucky nodded.

“Bucchae, what will you do?”

Bucky glanced around to check no one was listening in and leaned closer to whisper as quietly as he could, “escape.”

“It is not possible.”

“It is. Achilles has a plan. Arcade will not be able to stop him. But we need your help.”

Aunia paled and shook her head, even before Bucky had asked what he needed from her.

“On the night of the next party, we need you to open the gates.”

Aunia shook her head and began to scrub furiously as the tiles. “You must not ask this of me.”

Bucky sank back on his heels, worrying the rag between his hands. She was their only hope. 

“Aunia, _please_ ,” he begged of her, using what little of her native language she’d managed to teach him. “ _For me_.”

She continued scrubbing, hard, at a patch of tiles which didn’t seem particularly dirty, but she hadn’t yet stormed off or called the guards, which Bucky took as a good sign. He knew he was asking something dangerous of her, asking her to risk her life for someone she didn’t know very well. Just because Bucky would help in a heartbeat, didn’t mean anyone would—or should. Look where rushing to help had landed him. But Bucky would do everything in his power to make sure no harm came to Aunia. 

“You said yourself, this isn’t living,” he tried. 

She shot him an angry look. 

“We will protect you. I promise.”

“Arcade will kill you. And anyone he thinks helped you.”

“He won’t stand a chance. Achilles is the greatest fighter that ever lived. Open the gates and wait for us in the olive grove that lines the road. We’ll take you with us, we’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

“I wish I could help.” 

“You can. You’re the only one who can,” Bucky urged. 

She shook her head again, but less certain this time. 

“We’ll help you return home,” Bucky promised, but surprisingly, this only made Aunia shake her head even more.

“Not home. Not yet.”

“Anywhere. I promise we’ll help however we can.”

“There’s a town, south of here, Herculaneum. My sister,” Aunia broke off and stayed quiet for a long, thoughtful moment. When she glanced up at Bucky again, she looked determined though her eyes were full of sorrow. “My sister was sold to the pleasure houses there. If I help you open the gates, then you must promise to help me find my sister and free her as well.”

Bucky’s heart ached for her. He wanted to wrap her into a hug, but there were still too many watchful eyes of them. He contented himself with reaching for her hand instead and gripping it tightly with a reassuring squeeze. 

“I promise.”

Aunia nodded and squeezed back, before she gathered up her skirts and stood up, taking the bucket with her.

“A week tomorrow. That is when he’s hosting the next party,” she paused to whisper to Bucky. “The gates will be open.” Then she retreated across the bathhouse, looking very much like she was trying hard not to cry. 

Bucky watched her go, reeling with fresh guilt. He hated the idea of risking more lives to save his own, but it was the only way they could be sure of escaping. He could only hope Steve wouldn’t object to their new plan of stopping by Herculaneum on their quest to reunite Isaiah with his wife. Bucky was sure it wouldn’t be a problem, and if that was to be their new lot in life—spending an eternity reuniting loved ones, helping right small injustices where they could—well, it certainly wasn’t the worst way they could utilize their curse.


	19. Rome-Part Six

The men were hesitant to agree to Steve’s plan at first. He couldn’t blame them. If the choice was between certain death in a failed escape attempt or fighting better odds in the arena, of course, they’d choose to live another day. But once he told them of Arcade’s plan to execute Bucky and himself on the Feast of Mars, their tune soon changed. It helped—though it hurt Steve to think that way—that Arcade doled out an extra punishment for Bucky that morning, whisking him off to suffer for an imagined slight from Steve. 

Everyone agreed Arcade’s treatment of Bucky was abhorrent, and though they might not be willing to risk their lives for their own sake, they readily agreed to join Steve for Bucky’s. It made Steve’s heart soar with pride and affection. And so the plan was set. 

The night of Arcade’s next dinner party was cold and clear. The moon was full and bright, which was a mixed blessing. Hiding in the immediate vicinity around Arcade’s home might be more difficult, but it would make navigating the unknown terrain beyond the Ludus far easier if they managed to get away. The gladiators dined together after a grueling day of practice and Steve caught the gaze of Isaiah and Tiberius, giving them a curt nod each, making sure they were still on board with the plan. 

Steve’s meal was cut short when Doctorae whisked him away to be bathed and oiled and set ready in the atrium of Arcade’s house before the first guests began to arrive. It was a practice he was well used to, and although it never failed to be humiliating and perverse, today Steve was glad of Arcade’s obsession with displaying him like a prize. It would afford Steve a position right inside Arcade’s house, right near Arcade himself. Steve had played along like the docile obedient slave, so far, but that night—if all went to plan—Arcade would pay the price for his behavior. 

The party was more extravagant than ever. Steve gleaned from eavesdropped conversations that Arcade’s appointment to the senate had been confirmed and he was showing off his newfound power and wealth. Rumlow was there too, scowling at Steve from across the room. Steve scowled back. If he could, he’d slaughter Rumlow for his betrayal too. Even if the man didn’t stay dead, Steve would take some satisfaction from killing him once. With a sense of bitter irony, Steve thought back to his wish to have been able to kill Hector a thousand times for proper retribution. Perhaps this was punishment for his hubris. An enemy he would have to kill a thousand times. 

“Look at him!” Arcade gestured wildly at Steve, his words dripping with conceit, the man truly believed himself to be invincible. But Steve had gone up against invincible men before, and he’d never lost a fight yet. “The mighty Achilles. See how he stands at attention for me?” Arcade jeered as he passed, soon sweeping his arms out to present some other trophy or treasure. 

Steve ground his teeth and waited for the signal when he could strike. He caught the eyes of the serving girl, Aunia, from across the room who gave him the most imperceptible nod and Steve steeled himself in readiness. All he needed now was the signal from Isaiah. 

Their plan was threefold. Isaiah and Tiberius would lead the charge from inside the Ludus. After the evening bathing, before they were locked into their cells, the men would strike—taking down Doctorae and retrieving his keys, arming themselves from the armory, and stealing supplies from the kitchen if they could. At the same moment, Steve would strike from inside the house. He would be outnumbered, hopelessly, but he wasn’t scared of death. His goal was to take out Arcade and as many of his personal guards as possible. Then—so long as Aunia came through and the gates were open—the path would be clear for them to flee into the night and disappear into the hills surrounding Capua. By morning they could be leagues away and the groups would disperse, making it impossible for them all to be tracked down. Steve was confident most, hopefully all, would be able to make a clean getaway. 

It was a simple plan, but it hinged on timing and lots of small things going their way. Steve had long ago stopped believing in the gods. It was hard to keep faith when you’d lived as long as he had, but that night he prayed to Nike and Tyche, Nemesis too, begging for their favor. 

Aunia disappeared at some point during the festivities and Steve tried hard not to openly track her movement. He focused on his breathing and calmed his nerves, keeping an eye on Arcade as he paraded around the room, whilst making sure he could see the lights from the Ludus in his peripheral vision at all times. Then, the signal came. Three burning torches set in a window that normally stayed dark.

Steve didn’t waste a second in hesitation. Arcade had outfitted him with a blunt wooden pole in place of a spear, but he was a fool if he thought Steve couldn’t use that as a weapon. Steve went for the guard covering the door closest to him first. He swung the staff and jabbed in with no small force into the side of the man’s knee joint, dislocating it and sending him falling to his knees before he rammed the blunt end of the pole into his throat, crushing his windpipe. The man fell forwards and sprawled across the floor with a clatter of jangling armor, which was when the first party-goers began to notice something was wrong. By then Steve was already halfway across the room. He grabbed a serving platter from the hands of a terrified servant and sent the goblets spilling to the floor, using the platter as a discus to take out a second guard who had begun to rush towards him. The platter caught the man right across the nose. The cheek irons of his helmet stopped the blow from being fatal, but he reeled back in pain and blood gushed from his shattered nose. Steve didn’t stop to glance back, but he heard screams of horror at the sight. 

His attention was locked on Arcade, who had paled at the sight of Steve advancing towards him and was screaming for his guards to protect him. Steve snarled and hefted the staff above his shoulder to launch it across the room like a spear, heading straight for Arcade’s torso. The end wasn’t pointed, so the staff didn’t pierce him on impact, but the force of the blow certainly winded him and he went down, gasping for breath and voicelessly still screaming for someone to save him. 

Two more guards sprang at Steve, attacking in unison, but he batted them away with ease: disarming one and using his sword to slit the throat of the other before he turned the sword back on the first and rammed it into his chest through a weak spot in the armor by his armpit. Steve pushed their bodies aside and prowled towards Arcade like a lion hunting down its prey. 

Arcade scrambled backward, but Steve stepped on the train of his long, pompous robes, stopping him from getting very far. 

“This is for Bucchae, you sick son of bitch.” Steve let himself take one moment to delight in the absolute horror that was plastered across Arcade’s face, before he thrust the sword down into Arcade’s chest, shattering through his breastbone to strike him right through the heart. It was a quick death, perhaps better than Arcade deserved, but Steve wasn’t finished yet. He withdrew the sword and twirled to counter the attacks of more guards encroaching from behind him. They glanced uncertainly at their master’s sprawled corpse, but like true roman bastards, their discipline won out and they threw themselves at Steve anyway. 

The party had well and truly descended into chaos now, guests in all of their finery were cowering behind pillars and overturned tables. The music had stopped as the band abandoned their instruments and Steve could hear the fighting from the Ludus echoing above the din in the house. He held the guards back, fighting with all the deadly grace that had inspired the poems about Troy and earned him such a powerful reputation in the amphitheater. But he wasn’t impervious to injury. One of the guards slashed at his forearm and Steve nearly dropped the sword, catching it swiftly in his other hand and spinning around to deliver a counter blow that cut through the back of the man’s thigh and left him bleeding out on the floor. Another stabbed at Steve from behind, at the miles of vulnerable skin left uncovered by the useless aesthetic armor he was wearing. Steve gasped as he felt the blade slide into his skin and dropped to his knees like his attacker expecting him to. But rather than staying down, Steve flipped his sword and thrust it behind him, aiming upwards beneath the pteruges of his armor and catching the man right in the groin. 

Pain seared around the wound in his back and Steve found it difficult to stand. He used the sword to help push himself to his feet and glanced around to assess the situation. People were starting to try and flee from the party and Steve knew he should be running to regroup with the others and make their escape. Arcade was dead, so were most of his guards, Steve’s primary objective had been achieved. But Rumlow was still on the loose, and Steve so dearly wanted to get his hands on that villainous sack of shit. He stooped to grab a second sword from the floor, hissing against the pain that exploded in his back and staggered towards the archways leading towards the rooms at the back of the house where he assumed Rumlow had fled. 

⊷☆⊶ ❂ ⊷☆⊶

In the end, it wasn’t difficult to find him. The rooms at the back of the house yielded nothing but a few terrified servants and guests that Steve couldn’t bring himself to harm. Though, he knew that his comrades wouldn’t feel the same should they stumble upon them. The aristocracy was ripe for the picking as far as bloodshed went for them, despite Steve’s objections that only the guilty should suffer their wrath. Steve couldn’t just leave them here to die if he could help it, but he also couldn’t have witnesses running about unchecked either, because the empire was notoriously brutal when it came to those accused of disloyalty. 

These people were not his main priority, and he couldn’t ensure their safety once they stepped outside that door, but at the very least, he could give them a chance, and really, that was all that mattered.

“Go! Quickly now, and never speak a word of what you’ve witnessed.” Steve commanded with as much authority as he could muster considering the circumstances, lowering his voice into a guttural growl that left no room for a rebuttal. “Our vengeance is not meant for you, but should you tell another living soul of this night, it will be. Make no mistake about that.”

At the sight of his piercing glare and blood-streaked face, the only response Steve received to his stern warning was a few wide stares and shaky nods of the head before they warily rushed past him to step back out into the fray. By now, the gladiators in the Ludus had battled through the likes of Doctorae and a slew of armed guards that stood sentry between them and the upper floors of the house. Their skin was slicked with blood and their eyes bright and wild as they spread out and ransacked the house with reckless abandon, stealing anything of value they could later sell for a fair bit of coin.

Tiberius was among them, gleefully pocketing jewels and whatever denarii Arcade happened to have on his corpse, but Bucky and Isaiah were not, and all at once, a sickening feeling spread through Steve’s gut like a slick of hot oil. Isaiah was tasked to free Bucky from the stocks once the attack began and Doctorae was no longer a threat, then reunite with Steve to take down Rumlow, whom Steve knew wouldn’t be an easy fight to win alone, despite his skill in battle.

Rumlow was immortal, battle-tested, and skilled with a blade in a way that few others were. With how sluggishly his wounds were healing, Steve would need all the help he could get to take Rumlow down and buy them enough time to escape before he inevitably got back up again. Something was wrong. Steve could feel it in his bones.

“Bucchae? Isaiah!?” Steve called out as he shoved his way through the throng of gladiators running throughout the house, knowing in his heart he would not hear an answer to his call. He knew where they were, where he needed to go. Where Rumlow was lying in wait, ever patient to draw out his prey like a lion in the tall grass. And, just like Arcade, he was using Bucky to do it.

Steve’s heart stilled in his chest at the sight that greeted him in the training ground. Bucky bound in the stocks, Rumlow poised with a sword held to Bucky’s throat, and, as if that wasn’t bad enough—Isaiah’s body sprawled in the dirt. There was no hope for him, the blood pooled around him in the sand was an unnatural amount. Steve gasped with shock, feeling grief grip around his heart and squeeze until he couldn’t breathe. 

“No—!” 

“Yes,” Rumlow retorted with a sneer. “And your Patroclus will be next. I wanted you to  _ see _ him die.” 

Steve was running before Rumlow had finished talking, and for all that he apparently knew of Steve, he wasn’t prepared for Steve’s lightning-quick reflexes. Rumlow moved to slit Bucky’s throat, but Steve was too fast. He launched himself across the last few yards between them—throwing Rumlow back before his sword could sink more than superficially through Bucky’s skin. It still left a bloom of vivid blood in its wake, but Steve had seen enough wounds to know it wouldn’t be fatal, even for a mortal man. He ignored Bucky’s pained cry, even though it ached to do so, and threw his weight into tackling Rumlow to the ground. 

“No!” Steve growled this time, pinning Rumlow to the floor. “If you truly know who we are, you know what we’ve survived. What makes you think you’ll succeed where so many before you have failed?” he demanded. 

Rumlow’s expression hardened. He wrestled to get free, but Steve held him firm. 

“How arrogant. To think you’re so invincible,” Rumlow’s voice dripped with disdain. “Running amok through history unchecked.”

“I didn’t ask for this!” Steve shouted back. “Neither did you!” He shook Rumlow, clashing Rumlow’s shoulders into the solid ground. “We gave up everything for you—to  _ help _ you. Why would you want to kill us?”

“It is my  _ duty _ .” Rumlow spat back. “The visions, they’re a warning. The Holy Man in Silures confirmed what I knew in my soul. You’re unnatural, the pair of you. An aberration. I must restore order. And order only comes through pain.” He grunted and finally succeeded in throwing Steve off him, rolling away and leaping back to his feet with his weapons drawn. 

It took Steve only moments to recover himself, and he braced himself for Rumlow’s attack. The man was driven, determined to kill Steve and he didn’t seem to care much if he injured himself in the process. It made them more evenly matched than Steve would care to admit. He slashed at Steve’s legs, arms, getting lucky strikes to his torso too. Steve felt himself slow down as his body struggled to heal itself, but he knew he couldn’t give in. He flexed his grip around the handle of his sword, which was growing slicker with blood as it trickled down his arms and over his wrist. 

“You’re wrong.” Steve panted as he dipped his shoulder and drove forwards to push Rumlow off balance. He hooked his leg behind Rumlow’s and brought him down. This time Steve didn’t waste the opportunity with talking. He punched Rumlow forcefully in the face and rocked back so he could drive his sword deep into Rumlow’s belly. “We would have helped you.” Steve withdrew his sword and took no delight in watching Rumlow take a last shaky, watery breath. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, he knew he was about to die, but unlike most eyes Steve had the misfortune to look into as the life fled from them, Rumlow showed no remorse. “We wanted to help you.” He plunged his sword right through Rumlow’s throat, pinning him to the ground. 

Steve didn’t wait to watch Rumlow die, he knew it wouldn’t last long anyway, he had to get away before Rumlow revived. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the aches in his muscles and stinging of the gashes in his arms and legs as he moved, stumbling his way towards Bucky. 

“Bucchae,” he gasped. “Philtataos.” He used the sword to lever the bolts free from the stocks and shakily helped Bucky to stand. 

“Stéphanos.” Bucky gripped Steve’s face, looking horrified by the amount of blood that must be splattered there. “Isaiah. He’s,” Bucky faltered, and shook his head. “There was nothing I could do.”

“I know.” Steve pulled Bucky into a hug and for a moment they breathed against one another, taking comfort from the thudding of the hearts echoing between their chests. “We’ll take his body. And give him the burial he deserves.” Steve decided. “Take the swords. I’ll carry him.”

“What if we need to fight our way out?”

“I trust you to have my back.” Steve smiled and let himself waste a moment to kiss Bucky, deep and hard. Not that kissing Bucky was ever a waste. Steve hoarded all their kisses like they were the most valuable gems in the world. 

“Come on, before he comes round,” Bucky urged. He smiled, pausing to give him another quick kiss before he moved away to gather up both of Steve’s swords. He stole the cloak Rumlow had been wearing for good measure and strapped Rumlow’s and Isaiah’s swords to his belt. 

Steve gently lifted Isaiah’s once strong body and shouldered him carefully, showing him as much deference as he could manage. They moved through the Ludus slowly, picking their way through the debris the other gladiators had left in their wake. Most of the guests had fled or been killed, and the house was eerily silent. 

“Do you think they waited for us?” Bucky asked in a hushed whisper as they crept down the driveway towards the tree-lined grove. 

“I don’t know,” Steve grunted in response. “I hope they haven’t.” His wounds were healing, slowly, but he drew no comfort from that fact, not when he knew Rumlow would be healing just as fast. If the other gladiators had any sense, they’d have fled as soon as they got the chance. 

As they approached the grove, Steve saw a shape lurking in the shadows, not keeping half as hidden as she should have done: Aunia, clutching her robe around her, her eyes wide and terrified in the moonlight. 

“Thank the  _ gods _ ,” she gasped when they appeared. “I thought you’d died.” Then she noticed Isaiah and gasped again. 

“Come,” Bucky steered her through the gove, whilst Steve picked his way carefully behind them. “Let’s get somewhere safe.”

Steve wanted to scoff. Nowhere would be safe for them now. Not anywhere within the reaches of the Empire. Rumlow would follow them to the ends of the earth, driven by his mad theory. At least there was nothing substantial behind his claims that he could kill them, and Steve consoled himself with that knowledge. Rumlow might try, but he’d never succeed in taking Bucky from him; Steve was certain of that now. 


	20. Interlude III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw for mentioned suicidal ideation

Time slipped between Steve’s fingers like rough grains of sand, scraping at his raw insides with each second that passed him by since Thanos destroyed the stones on Titan II, taking with it the only chance Steve had to regain all that he’d lost that fateful day on the battlefield. 

Most of the Avengers scattered to the winds after that, accepting the fate that had been given to them with resignation and bitter sorrow. There was no resolution for this. No happy ending to the nightmare they’d been trapped within. The Mad Titan had effectively wiped out half of all lifeforms in the universe with a single snap of his fingers despite how they’d tried, with all their might, to stop him. But now, with the stones gone and Thanos dead, there’d never be a way to get them back. 

Bucky—and every single life that Thanos had snuffed out—was forever lost because of them, and the weight of that knowledge—and of the utter certainty it held within it—was so heavy upon Steve’s shoulders that it threatened to crush the once-mighty Achilles with each step he took. Every moment without Bucky by his side, wrapped tightly in his arms, felt like a lifetime spent in unending agony, making something as simple as breathing damn-near excruciating to withstand, and Steve, Gods help him, couldn’t find the strength he needed to do it any longer. Not without Bucky there to share the burden.

Stupidly, Steve assumed that with Bucky gone and the prophecy fulfilled, the curse of immortality that had been a millstone around his neck since he fell at Troy would finally be released, allowing him to be reunited in death with his beloved. Though, try as he might to permanently sever the lifeline that had been cut more times than any man should have to endure, life still refused to release him from its icy grasp.

For months he wandered the halls of the compound listlessly, struggling to find purpose in a world he didn’t want to be a part of any longer. He found solace at the bottom of a bottle, as so many others did in the aftermath, but the booze and the broken skin along his knuckles—the scattered remnants of punching bags that littered the gym floor like bodies in a graveyard—was merely a bandaid holding together the gnarled edges of a gaping stab wound, and sooner or later, the rot that was festering along his bones would consume him. Body and soul.

But Natasha, who was barely holding herself together as well, wasn’t going to let that happen if she could help it. With Sam and Bucky lost to the snap, Steve was all she had left in this world, just as she’d told him the night he’d quite literally drank himself to death. She couldn’t handle losing him to the demons in his head, watching him cry and shake as they whispered terrible things in his ear. 

“Don’t you even  _ think  _ of leaving me alone,” she snapped at him. “Not when there’s so much to do. Half the universe is gone. But the other half needs our help, Steve.” She gripped his face tight and peered into his eyes with a stern expression. “ _ Solnishko _ . We have to  _ help _ .”

Steve wanted to scoff and protest, wanting to keep drinking himself into oblivion over and over. Why did the world deserve his help? When had helping others ever brought Bucky and him anything but heartache and suffering? 

“Why? Why is it my burden?” Steve raged in a hoarse whisper as fresh tears streaked his face. 

“I wish I knew.” She knocked their foreheads together. “You lost something unimaginable. But you’re not the only one who’s grieving.”

Steve knew that, he did. Countless loved ones were lost, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to bear, and the past five months had been utterly unbearable. 

“How can I go on?” he asked, his voice cracked and broken by grief. He met Natasha’s eyes and stared pleadingly with her, earnestly seeking an answer. “I’m motionless in a life without him.” 

“But life goes on,” she whispered. She brushed Steve’s hair from his forehead, tucking the long unruly strands behind his ear, and planted a gentle kiss on his forehead. 

There was grief behind her expression, deep pools of it shimmering behind her eyes, but she’d always had far better control over her emotions than Steve had. She commanded them like a maestro on a finely tuned instrument when she wanted to, and when she needed to, she restrained them with an iron grip and a stoicism that Steve both sympathized and admired. 

“Whether we will it or not. Whilst our fates have tied us to this realm, time marches on, and we must march with it. Come.” She hauled Steve to his feet and pointed him towards the shower. “There’s work to do.”

She put him to work and kept him busy when all he wanted to do was fall apart. Natasha’s choice of words stuck with him though. The phrase worked its way into his subconscious, circling his mind like a broken record stuck on a loop. 

_ Time marches on _ . 

Steve knew that more than most. He’d watched millennia after millennia march by, all with Bucky by his side. Facing the relentless onslaught of time alone was infinitely worse. As time wore on, Steve found himself still searching for Bucky’s smile in a sea of faces. He was still surprised when he woke alone and found the pillows beside him cold and empty. He still poured two cups of coffee more often than he’d care to admit; breaking his own heart every time he poured the second down the drain long after it had gone cold, unable to bring himself to drink it. 

_ Time marches on _ .

Weeks turned into months, Natasha gave him more and more missions; it was the only thing that gave him purpose and stopped him from retreating into himself and breaking down. In the wake of the snap, the world had descended into chaos and she pointed him to places where he might be useful. There were plenty of corrupt groups that threatened to seize control of the power vacuum left by the snap and Steve threw himself back into the fight to fend them off. It worked for a while. But whenever he was left alone with his thoughts for too long, whenever he was faced with stillness, he was confronted with the weight of Bucky’s absence. It gnawed away at him from the inside, an ever-present ache that Steve couldn’t, and didn’t want to, move past. 

Whilst the rest of the world slowly picked itself up and started to piece itself back together, Steve was left unmoored and drowning in a sea of guilt and grief. He refused to move on. 

_ Time marches on _ . 

The phrase wouldn’t leave Steve alone. He found himself ruminating the phrase, turning it over and over in his mind, wearing the words thin until they almost lost their meaning. It wasn’t until almost a year had passed since the snap, when Steve woke in the middle of the night, finally making the connection he’d been missing all year. Time marched on—but Steve had seen time unwind. He’d watched Thanos wield the time stone and reverse a pocket of time, restoring the gem in Vision’s head before the Titan had ruthlessly plucked it free. 

Time didn’t have to be linear. Steve felt stupid for not realizing the connotations of that action before. He let out a broken, choked laugh as he sat panting in bed, his heart racing as a wave of giddy optimism rushed through him. It felt like a shaft of sunlight breaking through dense clouds, it felt like rain after a drought. It felt like hope. 

If time could be rewound, maybe there was a way to undo the snap after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Let us know what you think💜


End file.
